Good IRROPS experience with A3

Old Sep 21, 2015, 1:08 pm
  #1  
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Good IRROPS experience with A3

There have been storms across the Aegean Sea today. Not a good time to try a 45 minute connection in ATH from HER to the last LHR flight and inevitably the inbound to Crete was delayed by over an hour. However I was pleased with how A3 handled things

* paged in the departure hall and asked to go to landslide ticket desk for rebooking
* offered an overnight in Heraklion and the first flight out connecting to the 0910 to LHR
* I requested to take the delayed flight and overnight in ATH, then fly home. This was granted.
* Sofitel booked for me at Athens, dinner and breakfast
* my voucher upgrade to C was preserved for the Athens to Heathrow sector (was originally booked in Y from HER)
* got to the Sofitel, room ready and meal voucher for the buffet and a bottle of water waiting. Booze not included but that seems perfectly fair

Listening to other passengers I was definitely offered better options - M&B Gold helping out there perhaps? Other people were being rerouted via ATH and MUC on random LH flights.

My first overnight IRROPS in 16 years frequent flying! Very impressed with how A3 handled things. Based on this and the inflight experience they are my favourite airline in Europe.
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Old Sep 21, 2015, 1:30 pm
  #2  
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Originally Posted by Swanhunter
There have been storms across the Aegean Sea today. Not a good time to try a 45 minute connection in ATH from HER to the last LHR flight and inevitably the inbound to Crete was delayed by over an hour. However I was pleased with how A3 handled things

* paged in the departure hall and asked to go to landslide ticket desk for rebooking
* offered an overnight in Heraklion and the first flight out connecting to the 0910 to LHR
* I requested to take the delayed flight and overnight in ATH, then fly home. This was granted.
* Sofitel booked for me at Athens, dinner and breakfast
* my voucher upgrade to C was preserved for the Athens to Heathrow sector (was originally booked in Y from HER)
* got to the Sofitel, room ready and meal voucher for the buffet and a bottle of water waiting. Booze not included but that seems perfectly fair

Listening to other passengers I was definitely offered better options - M&B Gold helping out there perhaps? Other people were being rerouted via ATH and MUC on random LH flights.

My first overnight IRROPS in 16 years frequent flying! Very impressed with how A3 handled things. Based on this and the inflight experience they are my favourite airline in Europe.
This is indeed generous by U.S. standards, where you do not get hotel vouchers for weather delays. Is this typical for A3? I am guessing they have very few overnight delays due to weather, and therefore may be providing hotel vouchers.
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Old Sep 21, 2015, 1:47 pm
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Originally Posted by nk15
This is indeed generous by U.S. standards, where you do not get hotel vouchers for weather delays. Is this typical for A3? I am guessing they have very few overnight delays due to weather, and therefore may be providing hotel vouchers.
A3 has duty to care per EC261/2004. Nothing unusual here.
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Old Sep 21, 2015, 3:38 pm
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Originally Posted by Swanhunter
My first overnight IRROPS in 16 years frequent flying! Very impressed with how A3 handled things. Based on this and the inflight experience they are my favourite airline in Europe.
M&B Gold do indeed get priority in IRROPS as it should be. They are usually pretty decent with non status passengers too. Some airlines will try to get out of assisting even where they are obliged to under EC261/2004. I have been refused refreshment vouchers by airlines before for long delays for instance. They count on most passengers letting it drop.

Good to see another airline pro active and a pretty decent hotel too. ^
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 3:17 am
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Definately agree,

Last time I had a delay that meant I would loose my connection (mid-July SKG-ATH-LHR trip) I got rebooked for the next available flight next day and got offered hotel etc.

My SKG-ATH sector was in P booking class, and ATH-LHR was initially P , but upgraded using voucher .
The new ticket didnt get issued using the same booking classes: it was M class for SKH-ATH and D for ATH-LHR. That means I more than doubled my earned miles
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 5:11 am
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The new ticket didnt get issued using the same booking classes: it was M class for SKH-ATH and D for ATH-LHR. That means I more than doubled my earned miles
Yeah, that happened to me on a re-booked LHR-ATH (due to ATC strikes in Greece last year). The new booking class earned 100% miles but the original was 75%. I was pleasantly surprised when the (slightly) larger number of miles hit my account.
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 7:02 am
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Originally Posted by Swanhunter
My first overnight IRROPS in 16 years frequent flying! Very impressed with how A3 handled things. Based on this and the inflight experience they are my favourite airline in Europe.
You are a very lucky traveller. I should book all my trips on your flights! But you would not like it because I must have close to 140 IRROPS, with 35% of them involving overnight stays in hotels with a 50/50 ratio of the airline taking care of me. The other 50% of the overnight IRROPS, I had to fend for myself but at least I never had to sleep on an airport cot or bench or floor. My flights are on Star Alliance or OneWorld.
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 9:13 am
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Originally Posted by StuckinITH
You are a very lucky traveller. I should book all my trips on your flights! But you would not like it because I must have close to 140 IRROPS, with 35% of them involving overnight stays in hotels with a 50/50 ratio of the airline taking care of me. The other 50% of the overnight IRROPS, I had to fend for myself but at least I never had to sleep on an airport cot or bench or floor. My flights are on Star Alliance or OneWorld.
You could perhaps ask the mod for a sticky, where you could list your planned flights. This way we could all try to avoid travelling in the same plane with you, this way improving substantially our chances of our flights being on time!
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 10:02 am
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We'll have to create two lists: my wife is as unlucky as I am.

We do have plans to go to HER next year.
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 10:07 am
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Originally Posted by StuckinITH
We'll have to create two lists: my wife is as unlucky as I am.

We do have plans to go to HER next year.
You'll be fine for sleeping if anything goes wrong. KLouis boat, by dint of appearing in A3's in-flight magazine on more than one occasion, is probably now the officially designated accommodation for IrrOps under EC261. I trust a suitably high rate has been negotiated with the airline ...
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 12:34 pm
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Originally Posted by NWIFlyer
You'll be fine for sleeping if anything goes wrong. KLouis boat, by dint of appearing in A3's in-flight magazine on more than one occasion, is probably now the officially designated accommodation for IrrOps under EC261. I trust a suitably high rate has been negotiated with the airline ...
I hear you can even use miles for it now too .
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 12:59 pm
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My bow thruster broke down on Sunday, and it's presently rather stormy; can't even go out to trawl for dorado/mahimahi/λαμπούκες/Coryphaena . Y'all have to wait...
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Old Sep 22, 2015, 3:06 pm
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btw why dont we make all a HER DO? sometime next year spring maybe?
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Old Sep 23, 2015, 11:48 am
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Originally Posted by KLouis
My bow thruster broke down on Sunday.
Sounds painful
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Old Sep 23, 2015, 11:29 pm
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Originally Posted by DELLAS
Sounds painful
Well, not painful, it simply reminded me of the national elections of that day. I (the "people") was pushing to the left and it simply wouldn't turn (see the most recent developments of our brand-new government). And it's going to cost me money...

@NWIFlyer: As my answer has nothing to do with either A3 or frequent flying and, in addition, it represents a political statement, please feel free to delete it!
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