tom911

Do you think DOT will require AA to abide by their written conditions of carriage, or can any employee come along and waive those?

STS-134

Yes, AA screwed up, and they should give you compensation. However, this was also a planning failure on your part too. If there's an event that you absolutely do not want to miss, you shouldn't be planning to arrive the day before you think it's going to happen. Flights get canceled all the time, and if a flight gets canceled, how do you make sure you get there on time? You book a flight that arrives 3-4 days before you really need to be there for the event that you cannot miss, that's how. What would you have done if AA outright canceled your flight? You should plan to arrive at least 2 days before and ideally 3-4 days before the event (and for births, where the timing of the event is unpredictable, you should err toward more buffer time, not less).

When I watched the total eclipse in Chile, I did not plan to fly into Santiago on July 1 and then drive to Vicuña the same day or early the next day to watch the eclipse on July 2. Instead, I flew in on June 29, spent 2 days there, then drove to Vicuña on the third day. If my flight got canceled, this would give me 48 hours of buffer time to get to Santiago and I also had additional buffer time beyond that because I could have driven to Vicuña on the same day I arrived if need be. My departing flight had similar buffer time, with a full night planned in Santiago before going to the airport, just in case there was bad traffic getting out of the eclipse zone. And guess what? A drive that usually takes 5-6 hours ended up taking over 10, and I didn't get to the hotel until after 10 pm. But it didn't affect my departure because I set things up so that if there were snags here and there, I didn't get completely screwed.

I constantly have to tell my parents to never book reservations for activities that are hard to get on the day of arrival or 1 day after planned arrival, because if there's a snag, they're going to miss the activity and won't be able to get a replacement reservation. Plan to do stuff that you wouldn't mind missing on the first and second days, because you just never know when you'll actually end up arriving late. Like births, there are no do overs for eclipses.

s0ssos

There is no DOT policy that says you have to release J passengers' seats.
If AA truly wants to make their paid business class passengers feel valuable wouldn't it make sense? The other passengers do not have a J seat, nor is there any obligation to get them one. But they take away the one seat that they already promised.

v11a

?


"However, this was also a planning failure on your part too. If there's an event that you absolutely do not want to miss, you shouldn't be planning to arrive the day before you think it's going to happen."

??

Have you read the thread?

His baby was born prematurely, as a result of an unforeseeable medical emergency.

ijgordon

So I'm just wondering -- if the first segment was delayed by an additional, say, 5 minutes, and the door to the NRT flight was already closed when OP arrived at the gate, would we have 69 posts on this?

STS-134

Yes I did read the thread. The fact is, if your child is being born, and you absolutely don't want to miss the event, you should get there multiple days ahead of time. Like I'd do it at least half a week early. The timing shouldn't even be close. And furthermore, if you're ever in a situation where you need to be somewhere and the timing of the event is unpredictable, get on the darn plane first, and deal with the compensation later. Your first and foremost goal is getting there, everything else is secondary.

I was once in a situation where I literally had minutes to decide what to do. I was at NRT on March 12, 2011, the day after the earthquake. It had taken me over 6 hours to get from Shiodome to NRT, a result of all trains and elevated highways being shut down and all traffic using surface streets. When I got there, UA had given away my seat and told me it was too late to check in bags (T-15 from closing the door). UA also waitlisted me for flights the next day. Then I walked over the the NH counter and they had ONE flight left that day to the US, to HNL, departing fairly soon, but it was not quite at the cutoff time for ticket sales. I was fairly sure that if I can get to HNL, I can get to SFO. NH rep tells me it's $3k for a Y seat and I need to make up my mind quickly. I took a look around at people preparing to sleep in the terminal because everyone and their grandmother is trying to get out of Japan but a lot of airlines have canceled flights and told her, get me on that flight, I'll deal with getting home to SFO and the other issues later. Sometimes you've just gotta get on the plane and work out the other issues later, when you have time to think.

Tizzette

Not only was the baby born prematurely, but OP explained his height and having metal plates in his body are the reasons he paid for J in the first place. He said it would have been painful if not impossible to fly 14 hours in an economy seat. That is why he hesitated to take the Y seat, not arrogance. Neither matters to AA as far as compensating him, but they do explain why he is more upset about the matter.

donotblink

Not everyone gets much or any paternity leave, and/or maybe he works in a sales role where bonuses are depended on closing business and he needs that money to pay for all the stuff that comes along with having the baby. Respectfully, shaming the OP for this is totally uncouth, IMO.

Also babies can be born prematurely by more than a week.

s0ssos

No. Because then there would be no question of economy now vs business later.
It might actually have been easier, because it was AA's fault and he should ask them to get him to PUS another way (as others pointed out, there are other airlines, though AA may not want to pay it).

I do wonder if he mentioned the whole baby business, because even a hardened AA agent might soften and be helpful after hearing that? I don't know, cause I don't fly AA.

tom911

Imagine we'll see some more as this story hit a blog earlier today.
https://simpleflying.com/passenger-r...-childs-birth/

v11a

Wow!

"Yes I did read the thread. The fact is, if your child is being born, and you absolutely don't want to miss the event, you should get there multiple days ahead of time. Like I'd do it at least half a week early. The timing shouldn't even be close. And furthermore, if you're ever in a situation where you need to be somewhere and the timing of the event is unpredictable, get on the darn plane first, and deal with the compensation later. Your first and foremost goal is getting there, everything else is secondary."

Where in the world did you get the idea the baby was only half a week early?

In fact, it's highly unlikely that he would be travelling halfway around the world to begin with if she was due in 3 1/2 days.

{For the OP: I hope your wife and baby are in good health.}

nancypants

Some massive assumptions being made in both directions- the fact is we simply don’t know whether this baby was 3 hours early or 3 months. The suggestion is that the birth wouldn’t have been missed if the OP had arrived 24 hours earlier and really that is the limit of it. But it becomes a game of “what if?” at that stage. OP could have quite easily made it onto the original flight and still missed the birth due to an unexpected medical situation. It is no more helpful for us to judge than to blame AA for the miss.

canadiancow

I tend to agree with the majority here.

But I have one question.

How do they know if you arrive by T-30?

I hate boarding in the middle. I board first, or I board last.

I've had tight connections before, and when I arrive, it's T-30, and they're boarding. So I sit down and wait until it clears out, then I board. I was there at T-30, but I can't prove it. What happens if they give my seat away?

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Be that as it may, even if they have gone to all that effort to process and ticket an upgrade, if the original passenger arrives the upgradee should be downgraded. Let them sort it out after the flight... just as the downgraded passenger would have had to have done.

SonicFlyer69

I was in an opposite situation as OP -- I was the one who got upgraded (on UA, with a GPU) and given the seat of a paid passenger whom the gate agents thought wouldn't make the connection. But, he arrived to the gate while we were still boarding. I was already sitting and getting comfortable in my upgraded seat. So, one of the gate agents very apologetically explained the situation and asked me to move to my original seat in Economy Plus. He also gave me cash voucher for use on a future flight ticket for the inconvenience caused. It was given to me after I moved to my original seat, btw. It wasn't offered up front.

Bummer that I didn't get the upgrade, but I completely understand the situation, and agree that the paid passenger should get his seat. So, I didn't make a big deal out of it and moved to my original seat. If I was the paid passenger, I'd want my paid seat too.