TTL

A friend of mine traveling on a heavily discounted ticket from LHR to HEL to KUO did not have a nice experience with AY this morning. Scheduled to depart at 7.30 he took the earliest tube possible to T3 and was blocked at the check in by a bunch of AY longhaulers to become with lots of excessive weight both in trunks and luggage. It did take time to sort that out.

Unfortunately when at check in, the deadline time (may be something like 35 minutes before the scheduled departure time) was exceeded by 3 minutes. No go! The friend was told to walk to the ticketing desk and ask for a possibility for a later departure. The guy at the desk was a prototype of a communist bureucrat, what I heard of when the phone was open during the conversation, and there was nothing to negotiate about. The friend was offered alternative flights for the cost of Ģ1000. Luckily I was able to contact the domestic AY sales and got for him a Y-ticket for Ģ700 equivalent in €. 10.20 flight took of as planned, I am going to pick up the friend at KUO airport 18.05. But I think, there should be some reason also in robbing the customers, due to the poor infrastructure of an airline at given airport.

m2uk

As he didn't get a BP, have him try and remember urgently the checkin desk he went to as presumably they could look at the sequence data and see who was handled prior to the latestcheckin time and work backwards. Maybe there should be some form of "check in " token you can get if there's a queue to prove you were there, with maybe it showing the time printed out and they refuse to accept it if abused (i.e. clearly you check in for 0800 flight five minutes late, presenting a token from 0500 when you went to the bar).

Helsinki Flyer

Instead of paying 700 GBP, I wouldīve used miles. Last minute travel is about the only thing theyīre worth using for with all the surcharges etc.

TTL

The friend does not have the miles needed and mine are bound to the family account. A clever choice, whenever available!

tsastor

My advice in such a situation: Do not queue! Just go up to the check in desk bypassing any angry stares and demand to be checked in!

TamCaP

Hear hear! Whenever you are lateish for a flight, just do WHATEVER you can to get checked in before the cut-off time. First/business line, elbows... just don't get arrested in the process

hermanni

Can happen at HEL as well...I've missed an AY-coded flight on BA metal by appearing to the check-in 41 minutes before take-off. Cut-off at 45 minutes, no negotiations. Had to buy a new ticket.

WilcoRoger

I think after that you started to use olci or mobile checkin services

helahela

I'm sure there are also check-in terminals for Finnair in T3

AndyFlyer

And I hate to rain on your friend's parade, but with an 07:30 flight time, there is just too little time to make it from central London to T3 with ample time to spare using the tube, esp. given the huge number of engineering works currently ongoing with the underground. Best bed would have been cab to Paddington and then the Heathrow Express (first train out is 05:10 a.m. and takes 15 mins to Terminals 1,2 & 3). Or, a car service (mini-cab, chauffeur drive or even black cab) would cost at most 10% of the Ģ700 forked out for a new ticket.

hermanni

This was in 2007 or so, before BA offered OLCI for ex-HEL flights.

holtju2

You made a mistake. You should have booked a RT and just thrown away the return. Of course I don't know the exact loads on that day but being in July most of the flights are probably quite empty due to the holidays in Finland.

Unfortunately with most of the European airlines missing a flight on restricted ticket really means that you do need to buy another one to be able to fly.

I had a "fight" with SK people at HEL last year when I missed one flight early in the morning. They told me to walk to ticketing to get my ticket changed. Ticketing did just that but then when I walked back to check in I was told that it was too late for the new flight as well. Had to get the lady at the ticketing to come to smooth things around and get me to the new flight.

TTL

The time to get to T3 may have longish lasting and the time to check in then shortish, but the critical minutes were spent queuing to the desk although with carry on luggage only. OLCI would have helped a lot. I am certain, he knows that the next time.

About the tickets. When the first leg of a return ticket was not flown, rest of them become unusable as well. Thus the new return ticket, which was only available in Y and could be booked only by calling the AY service centre. No internet bookings are possible, when there is less than 2 hours to the intented departure. Convenient for the return flights though, as we changed them from the originally planned with no expenses. What I donīt understand is the great difference in the quotation given in the T3 AY ticket office and the AY call centre in Finland.

Even worse yet, as the friend checked in for the 10.20 AY flight, he decided to check in his carry on. That was lost and has not been recovered so far. Heathrow did keep up its reputation in that.

GUWonder

I don't know if this is the case with AY-ticketing at LHR or not, but at some places -- like TG ticketing at SIN -- ticketing staff at the airport try to milk money out of same-day purchasing customers at the airport even when cheaper one-way or roundtrip tickets are available for sale from their own city ticketing office or centralized reservation line. The airport ticketing office just won't sell the discounted tickets available for sale through the city ticketing offices, centralized airline reservation lines or independent travel agencies.

While it may run foul of many airlines' program rules, someone could probably still make or save a good amount of money by converting their miles into last-minute tickets for those "stranded" passengers who find themselves in these kind of situations on a daily basis at some airports. LHR would be a prime spot for such situations.

Even now, OLCI doesn't always work with BA. Even Turkish Airlines OLCI at rather remote places works far more reliably than is the case with BA.