yaseryacoob

I am a PE and Million+ and has been for many years.

I have to say at the outset, most airlines are the same as long as everything
is going as planned, it is when the unplanned happens that the good and bad standout.

We were connecting from a different airline (Eurofly) to AirFrance in Milan, on a ticket MXP-CDG-IAD.
While originally we had 4 hours connection between flights, the Eurofly ended up arriving 3 hours late (apparently due to a mechanical problem), which had us arrive at AirFrance 25 minutes before the flight and disallowed checking in.

The KLM agent at MXP, with quite a bit of effort, put us on the next flight to Paris. Once in Paris, Air France agents declared our ticket null-and-void, they wanted us to buy a new ticket and were quite indignant that we were at all accommodated in Milan. It took over an hour of arguing, yelling and $650 to have us on the next day flight to Philadelphia.

The affair cost us over $900 and lots of agitation.

Air France may have made $650 on us (in addition to original $3000 tickets), but most defintely lost our business.

cfischer

let's see, you missed your flight in MXP and this was not the fault of AF at all. They could have just xld your ticket altogether and charge you a full fare o/w. I agree that they should have sorted this out in the first place instead of sending you to Paris first, but in the end I think you got lucky the way things went.

cblaisd

I'll move this to Air France from the Sky Team forum since that seems the most apt place for it.

cblaisd
Senior Moderator

Manoa Chris

Your original ticket was $3000? In business class? Was the $650 a fare differential?

Standby in europe sadly doesn't work the same as in the US. But my experience with AF has generally been pretty good on paid J tickets. I have heard some bad stories about discounted economy problems, but with the low EQMs I avoid those to begin with.

rcs85551

Did you travel on a different ticket and reservation on Eurofly into Milan? If it was not on the very same ticke as your MXP-CDG-IAD, the very same would have happened on any airline.

If your travel was on one single ticket and one single reservation, Eurofly as the carrier having the schedule irregulatiry would have been under the obligation to reroute you based on standard IATA rules and procedures, not Air France / KLM (or any other airline you could have connected to).

Hence, in any event, AF/KL is not the problem.

JOUY31

Was your AF ticket a full fare ticket ? If that was the case, you should have been put on the next flight without a problem. If the ticket was not full fare, it was indeed void as you had missed the first flight segment through no fault of AF. Unfortunate, but that is the way European airlines operate. As to the costs (USD 3,000, 900 and 650) was it for your entire party (how many persons ?) or was it per person ?

yaseryacoob

More info

1. Each ticket was about $1450 coach, so they were 100% EQM.

2. The KLM agents in Milan had limited ability to waive fees and penalties, so they waived us to CDG (which shows that KLM and AirFrance are not integrated from a customer perspective).

3. The agents at CDG tried to get us to buy a one way ticket CDG-IAD (I saw numbers in the $1500-2500 range). It was after arguing and pleading for an hour that we paid $325 each for a flight to Phili the day after instead of WAS.

4. No standby option was allowed, no business-class upgrades using miles were allowed, no attempt at customer-service was made, period.

5. Instead of servicing the customer we found an attitude of got-you, you broke the contract and now you pay for it. I reminded them of delays I encountered on AirFrance with no compensation for breaking the contract (or delaying my luggage for a day...)

6. I have a choice of airlines, and would not choose AirFrance, for if a savvy traveller at the Elite-plus counter gets this treatment my heart falls for the occasional traveller.

7. I had this post for Northwest and Skyteam considering members like me who can choose among NW/KLM/AirFrance/Alitalia and are likely to fare better if they avoid AirFrance. As I said, as long as everything goes according to plan airlines are indistinguishable, but occasionally things don't and you really want to be on an airline that is customer-oriented.

JOUY31

100% EQM does not mean full fare, unrestricted. A full fare, unrestricted Y ticket IAD-CDG-MXP would be about USD 3,500.

Except for you, we would seem to be in agreement that, if you were not on a single ticket Eurofly/AF, AF did nothing wrong. In fact, they were nice enough not to charge you the full fare one-way ticket. As mentioned by rcs85551, if it was on a single ticket, it was up to Eurofly to re-route you, but you did not mention making such a request, so you were probably flying on two different tickets.

This is an unfortunate situation, but you chose to take the risk of having two separate tickets.

SpinzCity

>>>>>you chose to take the risk of having two separate tickets...

I sometimes fly on separate tickets "connecting" between transatlantic and intra-European flights (but always allow more than 24 hours for the "connection", while finding some way to enjoy a day and night in the connecting city).

dg4255

Agreeing here with the other posts. You arrived late for a flight to no fault of AF on a non-full fare ticket. This puts you in a bad situation and regardless if on KL or AZ or OK, you would've been faced with the same situation in all likelihood. This is a good reason to always purchase trip cancellation/trip interruption insurance. I buy it for every single trip regardless of class of service I am flying. It costs me about $40 per trip. Even if it is MY fault for missing the flight, the insurance covers me to be rebooked and reticketed. And it covers my missing or delayed luggaged, missed connections, weather complications, strikes, jury duty, sickness, etc etc.. and that all-important accidental death and dismemberment.
Just be thankful they did only charge you the $650. You may not be happy with that, but they bent the ticket rules so that you could get home. I would suggest next time, regardless of the airline, you make sure they are on one ticket or you carry the trip cancellation/trip interruption insurance.

raehl311

Ok, so to summarize...

- You screwed up

and

- Not your fault

That about cover it?


You booked out a seat and then didn't sit in it. Why would you expect AF to then give you another seat for free?

KLouis

This is exactly the reason I buy my ticket from a TA when planning a complicated routing. I then pay ~20-40 Euro more and, depending on the airline, I can't OLCI but, al least, I know that I won't loose my money if anything unexpected happens, and somebody will take care of putting me on an alternative, later flight.

jsfr

I'd say you were extremely lucky to make it to CDG and not to have to deal exclusively with the MXP agents.

Twice I've had problems with tickets MXP which were entirely MY fault. The last time the agents in MXP wanted to charge me �860 for a standby ticket via Naples just to get to CDG (and they said that despite Platinum I probably wouldn't get home anyway). A call to the AF Elite reservations line had the situation sorted for �300.

Your story really could have ended being much much more costly!

yaseryacoob

I found the reactions quite interesting, they appear to reflect different travel-experiences in Europe and USA (most of you live in Europe, and maybe subject to infrequent delays, cancellations and short trips?).

The way I see it, I tolerate delays, cancellations, baggage-delays and strikes in the understanding that my airline will reciprocate if I encounter out-of-control situations (and believe me the airlines come on top in this deal!). This worked mostly well for my 2 decades of 20-25 trips a year.

On the other hand, you can choose to insure (you must afford to insure 20-25 flights a year:-), tolerate/absolve Airline misdoing and pay-up without wanting reciprocity. Have any of you gotten 200Euros when your baggage showed up 1 day late?, or your plane is 2 hours late?

At the end of the day I have a choice of airlines to get me to most destinations and it appears that some airlines do not understand this yet.
I bought 3 cross atlantic tickets from AirFrance in 2007, I could have as easily flown NWA/CO/Delta/KLM (I still have faith in KLM service, until proven wrong).

rcs85551

Or you can simply choose to book your entire itinerary in one single reservation, on one single ticket. Then the airlines have to take care of you.

And this applies to *all* travel worldwide, including the United States.