Responsibility of AA for Invalid Passport?
 

Alright, I will try to make this as short and brief as possible.

My grandmother purchased a ticket from Charlotte to Laos and her passport expires in March of 2018. She was not aware of the 6month rule. The problem was that on the first leg of the flight was through American Airlines from Charlotte to LA. American Airlines checked her passport and then allowed her to get onto the flight. She arrived in LA and then when she attempted to board the flight from LA to the next leg of her trip (S. Korea), she was denied boarding due to her passport having less than 6 months left upon return. The problem here was that we had to buy her a ticket back from LA to Charlotte.

I understand it is the traveller's responsibility to make sure they have all of the proper documentation and when my cousins bought the tickets, they assumed that since her passport hadn't expired, all they needed was a visa. My question is, does AA bear any responsibility for allowing her to board the flight to LA in the first place, which resulted in her having to purchase another ticket back home to Charlotte? Please advise

No.

No. Passport/Visa issues PAX responsibility 100%+ of the time.

So even though AA was aware that passengers must have 6 months left on their passport and they let a passenger on with less than 6 months left on their passport to board their flight, they bear no responsibility?

Yes, they bear no responsibility. YOU DO.

If you are looking for AA to compensate you for a mistake they did not make-good luck with that.

No. The passenger is 100% responsible for having proper documents.

I understand what you are saying but why did they let her board on the first place? Why not deny her upon the first flight? Why let a passenger, with basically an invalid passport, board an international flight?

And thanks, I do appreciate everyone taking their time to respond.

Because based on what you suggested, it wasn't an international flight. She was boarding Charlotte to LA. When she tried to board the international leg they didn't let her on, per your comment. Unfortunately, it's up to the passenger to understand the document requirements for their final destination, and the airline doesn't often check until departure from the gateway city (in this case, LA)

Happened to me too
 

Happened to me and my son. Our family flew to Australia then tried to continue on to Indonesia. My son was denied boarding for Indonesia in SYD for exactly the same reason. Some countries have no PP validity/visa requirements, some have 1 month, and some have 3 months and some have 6 months PP validity requirement. I felt like an idiot but I didn't try to blame anyone else: it was MY fault. I lost 6 tickets from AU to ID (couldn't just leave a 15 year old in AU). Big $$ hit for me, but lesson learned.

BTW it turned out to be a great extra week in SYD so when you have lemons; make lemonade.

This. There's no need to check 6 month validity on a domestic flight (CLT - LAX). In her case, she probably used it as identification rather than passport verification.

The passenger required no passport to travel to LAX and it would be wrong of AA to stop passengers at that point - for example, the passenger may have their passport at LAX

The passenger is solely responsible for having required documentation and there is no way that AA is responsible for costs of getting back

The airline that controls the flight departing to an international destination has the ultimate obligation to check all immigration and passport visa requirements for the destination country must check full validity in accordance with what is published by International Air Transport Association (IATA) using TIMATICWEB. (Agents on connecting flights are not, AFAIK, obliged to do so.)

Failure to do so can result in a scenario like this: friends of mine flying on AA miles in CX Business flew AA SMF-LAX and then CX onward to HKG and DEL. On arriving at DEL, an anomaly (name error) was discovered in her visa, invalidating the visa. Cathay was required to transport her back on the return flight out of DEL at their expense (and making CX subject to a fine iirc up to $10,000). This is why airlines are pretty avid at checking docs - an employee allowing an improperly documented passenger to board can be disciplined for such an event. But the passenger bears the ultimate responsibility.

It is ALWAYS up to the passenger to check requirements and conditions of transit and destination countries. Or, one can pay agencies to do the research and issue the visas. Would-be travelers can always check out travel documentation requirements themselves using IATA TIMATIC- one airline that makes TIMATIC available freely is United, at https://www.united.com/web/en-US/app...aspx?i=TIMATIC.

I can name another carrier - Delta - that routinely demands travel docs before allowing passengers to embark on a domestic segment with immediate connection to international. You'll hear passengers paged out of DTW as they head to ATL, JFK, LAX...

That doesn't change passenger responsibility here. 'They didn't tell me I failed soon enough' doesn't have much play.

There have been some recent incidents, IIRC on UA, of passengers not being allowed to fly domestic legs of international itineraries without passports. In one case, someone started on the east coast, but lives in LA and had planned to go home to pick up the passport during a stopover (or connection?) at LAX. There was another incident in which the passenger without documents was a child and IIRC the custodial parent was going to bring the passport to the airport en route.

What airline was flying the LAX-ICN leg? Did you get a boarding pass when checking in at CLT?