PeteM01

Flying MAN-BOM-HYD 7th Feb, with an overnight stop in BOM. We tried to board the final leg this morning (AF6918, operated by Jet Airways) and the BPs were rejected. The Jet Airways GA said that Air France had off-loaded us from the flight the previous day. The flight was full and we are currently trying to get rebooked on a later flight. Does anyone know why AF would do this?
The details are:
MAN-CDG, AF coded, operated by FlyBe; CDG-BOM, AF operated; BOM-HYD, AF coded, operated by Jet Airways.
The itinerary was on a single PNR, booked through the AF website.
OLCI was through FlyBe, which provided BPs for all legs.
There was a late rescheduling of the return flights that had to be sorted through the PSL. I had to re-check in for the outward flights but there was no problem with this (apparently).
I have contacted AF through Twitter (not using a coutnry specific twitter address) but no reply as yet.

Goldorak

atflyer

I had once a KL flight with 2 legs where I bought and upgrade with miles for the last leg. They manually upgraded, de facto creating a new itinerary, but forgot to re-install the first leg properly. I could still print boarding passes for the 2 legs but initially was denied boarding for the first leg flown by a partner airline. Only frantic protest, calling KLM by airline and myself, and the fact that my seat was not yet taken saved the day. Long story to indicate that AF may have done something wrong with the rescheduling. Obviously, you are in a situation that the mistake is not yours and you should have been protected (and in any case flown now to your final destination with compensation for the delay).

Often1

AF has no capacity of offload a passenger from a flight operated by another carrier. AF could have cancelled or changed the ticket, but only Jet could offload.

The key is to find out why this happened.

PeteM01

Thanks for the replies. We did make our destination, more than 3 hours late and in Y rather than J.
I guess that Jet literally off-loaded us because AF cancelled (or forgot to reissue) the final flight of the outward journey, but the GA used the term 'off-loaded' in regard to AF.
I would not be surprised if it was an AF problem after the rescheduling of the return flights and a reissue of the whole itinerary. The PSL took a long time to sort this out a couple of days ago and so may have made an error.
Locals in Hyderabad say Jet is cancelling a lot of flights these days due to financial troubles, which may have triggered this fiasco. I have to say that the Jet staff in BOM were very helpful, despite many of them being paid only sporadically.
Now, of course, I am concerned about my return journey, having been re-routed through BLR, with HYD-BLR being operated by the unreliable Jet. No reponse on Twitter from AF, so will have to try the PSL tomorrow...

MSPeconomist

brunos

BOM-HYD is just a one hour flight, so you won't get much if anything.
But I understand your worry about the return flight. 9W is bordering bankruptcy and it could happen any day.
Your experience with mediocre J in JN A343 then the 9W incident was no fun.
Let's hope that 9W does operate on your return. Apparently, you are now flying BLR-CDG with BEST J. that should be a better experience.

SK AAR

My guess is that something went wrong when reissuing your tickets due to the schedule change - you merely had a reservation (but no longer a valid ticket) for the 9W flight, and consequently 9W removed you from the flight (any reservation without being correctly ticketed will be cancelled by the operating carrier at some stage). Try to have a closer look at the BPs that you printed from OLCI - any difference in the ticket information stated in the BP for the 9W flight?

PeteM01

PeteM01

brunos

If I understand correctly, you bought a MAN-HYD-MAN and manage to cancel the HYD-BLR segment?
I hope that does not create further problems, like cancelling your BLR-MAN if you don't show up for the 9W flight. Unlikely if the agent did a good job, but..
BTW: good upgrade prices on both legs.

PeteM01

Now sat in the Plaza Premium lounge at BLR...there was some issue with the BLR-MAN tickets but it was sorted with a quick phone call by the check-in agent!

Often1

Glad that you had an agent sufficiently trained and motivated to help out after the fact, but for the benefit of others, the issue here is that because OP did not fly the HYD-BLR segment, his onwards segment to MAN was likely cancelled. It can take some doing to restore the ticket segment and there is no guarantee of availability.

Thus, when one cancels an intermediate segment, it is important to have the agent handling this confirm to you through a readback all remaining segments. It annoys agents and people waiting in line behind you may hate you, but it is a lot letter than being stuck until availability opens up.

PeteM01

This is based on a misunderstanding of the events. I cancelled the HYD-BLR segment using the PSL and obtained a refund. This was reflected in the itinerary on the AF app. A minor delay at check-in at BLR could have been due to the late changes in both the itinerary and class of travel. I had managed to OLCI BLR-CDG-MAN but needed to check in physically to get the lounge access pass (plus I no longer trust OLCI-issued BP!).

Edited to say that the general point about not flying the first segment and having the remaining segments cancelled is correct but did not happen in my case.

PeteM01

Update: Superfast response by AF - they will chase up 9W for IDB and downgrade compensation (will not be much), contact FB for the XP that we lost and have offered vouchers for AFKLM flights as a goodwill gesture (enough to cover our upgrades!). We will see what happens with the first two points but a phone call from Customer Services within minutes of submitting the online complaint was a nice touch.

To end on a high note, the AF191 J cabin crew last night were the best I can remember - it helped that they were all rather glamorous ladies, but they had also mastered the difficult combination of being both highly professional and pleasantly chatty.