obsdk

Hi,

Need your advice here:

I recently travelled from Copenhagen to Boston on Air Canada flights. The outbound trip (CPH-YYZ-BOS) went smooth but on the way home (BOS-YUL-LHR-CPH) I was delayed for a total of 22 hours.

Inbound itinerary:

BOS-YUL (AC) - departing 5:30 pm, arriving 6:42 pm
YUL-LHR (AC) - departing 8:05 pm, arriving 7:30 am
LHR-CPH (SK) - departing 9:50 am, arriving 12:45 pm

Because of bad weather the flight from Boston was delayed for 90 minutes and arrived in YUL at 8:20 pm. By that time the flight to LHR had already left and so AC had rebooked me on a 9:30 pm flight to FRA which would have minimized the delay to approx. 7 hours because of a long layover in FRA.

Upon arriving in YUL I was instructed by gate staff that I would need to go and pick up my luggage and then proceed to the connections desk. However, my luggage was never delivered at the designated baggage carousel so I had to go to the missing baggage desk. They started calling around to locate my luggage and it was finally delivered to me. I am thinking that the reason that my luggage was not delivered may have been due to the "In transit" tag that was on it.

In any case, I arrived at the connections desk only 25 minutes before the flight to Frankfurt was supposed to take off so I did not make it on to that flight either. I am guessing that there were no more AC flights leaving for Europe that night so I was offered accomodation at the local Sheraton hotel and given new boarding passes to fly YUL-YYZ-CPH the next day.

Is this an adequate basis to ask AC for any compensation? I realize that the delay was initially caused by the weather but I do think that it was further extended by AC.

Any advice would be appreciated.

canadiancow

Regardless of what I think would be appropriate, this delay was caused by weather, you were given a hotel (not technically required), and rebooked on other reasonable flights.

There is no way you're going to get anything.

Often1

OP is lucky that a kindly AC agent gave him a hotel voucher. There is no compensation due.

Even if this were an xEU flight, the underlying cause was WX and EC 261/2004 delay/cancellation compensation would not likely be payable.

If OP shoots a 2-3 sentence webform note to AC, he might receive a few miles as a gesture.

j_the_p

I read the OP as the following:
-- 7 hour delay due to weather (oh well)
-- 22 hour delay due to baggage delivery issue (compensation?)

obsdk

Correct.

Often1

There is still no compensation due. As noted, OP might make a request for a customer service gesture, but it's discretionary and not owed.

Chances are that AC will point out that it was a transit bag and what happened was routine as the bag had to be fished out of transit and processed into Canada. In theory, OP could have walked off with it and not returned.

why fly

UGH, obviously your delay could have been 7 hrs instead of 22 hrs but because AC never has staff to help out with these connection issues, you got screwed.

Yesterday i was watching how 100's of customers would miss their connection in YYZ because AC had insufficient staff at baggage, and so many customers should have been told to just go to there next flight without their bags.

Next time, instead of waiting for you bag, do a baggage claim when you get to your destination.
Or avoid flying AC.

Next problem is AC compensation is a waste of time, what they offer is a joke, or an insult, usually a 5% off cert on your next flight NOT including surcharges and taxes.

canadiancow

It could be worse. You could be flying UA, where you wouldn't even get a hotel for a weather delay.

jlisi984

Sometimes you have to decide what's more important - getting to your destination quickly or with your baggage. I would 100% go for the former.

canadiancow

I'd take either of those over what I find is common in these situations: neither

keitherson

Better hope that carry-on wasn't gate-checked

jlisi984

$1000 of AMEX insurance you're missing out on!

YXUhomebase

i guess i have had better luck on UA, twice i have gotten hotel room due to delays started by weather.

CloudsBelow

As usual, Often1 is bang on with a clear, correct interpretation/explanation in times of IRROPS. ^

The OP's experience is just another example of how and why direct routings command a premium. I'm NOT blaming the OP but hope there were considerable $ savings routing via YUL (and you can see how AC had seats to fill and was armed with 777HD CASM thus able to scoop TATL PAX exNE USA via fares too good to pass up)

zrh2yvr

Agree on this one.

Obviously a bit late - - but in the case of a misconnect - where you are tagged through to your destination - I would just get myself to my flight and deal with the baggage separately. The bar codes on the tag can be electronically updated and you would be surprised how well the system can work to re-direct your bag automatically. I basically would have told them that I won't get my bags and they can locate and re-tag. Ultimately - I would file the missing bag information on arrival and wait for my door-to-door delivery.

Ultimately - on an international connection - if you miss it, you often have no other choice but to overnight and wait until the next day.