Originally Posted by
steveholt
The flight was changed by AA on September 24. There's no reason why the rules would be any different for an airline that didn't properly process a rebooking a month in advance or two days in advance. AA could process these reticketings immediately but does not.
It's not clear that re-ticketing is the issue. The rescheduling occurred in September but JAL let OP choose two J seats just a few days ago. Two days before departure seems very late for an audit to discover a valid ticket wasn't in place for seats JAL sells for over $7,000 each.
And there's no reason why the cancelled flightwould be the basis for judging whether an airline did not perform their duties appropriately. If this were a flight that was cancelled because of weather issues or because of standard operations, then of course, the airline would not be responsible. But an airline dealing with a cancellation, issuing a confirmation with new flights to the original passenger, never actually processing the rebooking, and then not offering flights at comparable times when they were available on partner airlines? That's a very different case, and one that does not happen every day and not invoke a constant stream of lawsuits as suggested there should be to prove your point.
Without a doubt, there are tens of thousands of people out there who have missed important events due to circumstances within the airline's control. If airlines were liable for damages in these types of cases, nobody would have any problem finding relevant court cases, news articles, blog posts, etc.
Originally Posted by
FlyingUnderTheRadar
Not surprisingly folks are make lots of assumptions that have little basis in reality. You would be wrong. For the suits I am quite familiar with the airline's in house lawyer flew in for the day for the trial. Actually for several trials across the country.
Why are you being so cryptic about some small-claims lawsuits resulting from one event 10 years ago that are supposedly so relevant to this situation?
And the person you replied to never said airline lawyers literally never show up to small claims court, just that most "winners" likely didn't actually prevail in court but were given settlements that were cheaper than flying in a lawyer or retaining local counsel. That sort of things happens hundreds of times every day.