zolagola

Dear all,

after a bit of an unpleasant experience in DEL with Air India, I would be interested in your views on the following IROPS:

Situation

• 2 pax (one *A Gold, one no status) booked on the following flights on a single ticket:
  - AI666 BOM-DEL 4:00pm – 6:05pm
  - Connection time DEL 1:50h
  - AI155 DEL-DME 7:55pm – 11:20pm
  
• Tickets were in C and issued by Lifemiles as award tickets (booking class I)
• Due to a delay of AI666 (arrival 7:41pm, 1:36h late) we missed AI155
• AI refused to book us to any other flight except the next AI155 which would depart 48h (!) later

Chain of events

• Whilst waiting at BOM, I received an email 4h before departure that AI666 would be delayed by 45mins
• I checked with several AI people and the customer service desk at BOM and asked for earlier flights to DEL in order not to endanger my connection to Moscow (I was already expecting a delay of 60+ mins at that time, having checked aircraft location via flightradar24)
• Whilst no other AI options were available (another flight via UDR was projected to be delayed too), I accepted a downgrade to Y on a 9W flight but just before I was rebooked the agent realized it was an award ticket and denied the rebooking
• Instead BOM sent a telex to DEL requesting them to meet us at the gate and escort to the departure gate for Moscow with priority
• As expected, AI666 was delayed even further, we left BOM with a delay of 1:10h, so I alerted the crew again and was promised the captain would sent a note to DEL about the close connection
• Upon arrival at DEL the pilot missed the gate and we had to circle around again, only arriving with a delay of 1:36h and just 14mins ahead of the scheduled departure of AI155
• We were first of the plane and were indeed met by an AI rep – who asked us to wait as the flight had apparently departed
• We then stood there for a good 10mins until 10 other pax from Y who were also booked on AI155 had deplaned
• Once all 12 pax were there, the AI rep just said “follow me” and started running – apparently now there was a chance of catching the flight again
• So we rushed through the terminal (of course AI had not bothered providing a cart to speed up things) and reached the AI transfer desk and were signalled to pass through immigration next to the counter
• Just as our passports had been stamped (and we had officially departed India on our one-entry visa) the AI staff refused to take us to the gate, stating the flight had departed
• The other 10 pax, who had not passed immigration yet, were told to go to the ticket counter in the departure hall to sort out the matter
• They realized we could not proceed to this counter due to the missing visa and so we had to wait for 20mins whilst they discussed with the immigration officer
• Then the young AI chap approached us and told us to just go upstairs through the security check and then we would find our way to the ticket desk, everything “would be fine”
• I insisted on being escorted there which did proof as the right decision - the guy refused at first but then agreed and eventually handed us over to two very helpful airport staff who took another 45mins to talk to different immigration officers, collect stamps and papers in order to get us back into India
• So there we were in the departure hall and our ordeal did just start - I spent the next 5 (!) hours arguing with different people of Air India ground handling as they refused ANY help
• Not only did they fail to provide support with telecommunication (DEL only offers 45mins free WiFi which I used up quickly) or food/drinks, they also refused to rebook us to any other flight, be it the SU option to SVO the next morning or various *A options via Europe (LH, LX, …)
• They insisted that it was an award ticket and they would even not rebook paid tickets to other carriers as this was ‘against the rules’
• They kindly offered to rebook us to AI155 which departed 48h later – but not to worry, AI would pay for a hotel too, yet only for 24h
• Of course they wouldn´t give this in writing, all I got was a lousy “flight delay confirmation”
• It was really ridiculous, at one time I was told “the supervisor does not want to speak to you”
• I did consider calling Avianca but as travel had commenced already, it was the clear responsibility of AI to resolve the IROPS situation and I doubt AV could have rebooked the partially used ticket
• In the end I just bought a new ticket on QR and arrived in Moscow some 14 hours later so ‘lost’ a pre-paid transfer, hotel night and one day of an event I was planning to attend and had bought a ticket for

From what I understand, AI should have rebooked me to another flight with “least possible delay or inconvenience” following IATA resolution 735d/e and should (in theory) be liable to recover my expenses (such as hotel accommodation, meals).

Now after all the experience with AI on the ground, I doubt that they will be very cooperative when I ask them to cover my out of pocket expenses but would be interested if anyone had interaction with AI on a similar issue and could provide insights or tips on how to best address this.

Thanks for taking the time and apologies for the lengthy description.

Keyser

sorry for the unpleasant experience....ai is not the best when it comes to ground customer service....with award tickets they get even worse (if that is even possible)....earlier this year i was flying bom-del on an award ticket & the flight was delayed by 3 hours....there was another ai flight leaving 2 hours later but the staff at the airport refused to change my ticket saying that it was an award ticket & they were not allowed to do anything....

i would suggest you follow up with ai....in all likelihood you won't get anything out of it but there is no harm in trying....

PVDtoDEL

I had a similar experience recently, flying HYD-BOM-EWR on a revenue ticket. Once the AI reps started to talk about hotel and flying out the next day, I promptly went to TK and started begging to speak to the duty manager. Repeating "Star Alliance Endorsement Waiver" a few times to TK got the duty manager to agree to claim the ticket.

If your FTL status is still valid, I'd have recommended going to LH and requesting them to take your ticket. Probably would've been more effective. Since it was an award ticket, all bets are off tho. It would be nice if IATA or *A could specifically clarify IRROPS policies for award tickets - airline agents always seem to be scared to death of touching award tickets. Even UA, which has the most flexible IRROPS policy in *A, tends to be resistant to endorsing award tickets sometimes.

oliver2002

735d instructs IATA members to treat award tickets as real tickets, the *A endorsement waiver is applicable for that too. The OPs case was probably tricky because there was no inventory on partner/*A airlines... they usually call and ask LH and others if there is space available and if they can put irrop pax onto their flights.

worldtraveller73

Since travel has commenced, isn't the OP entitled to re-booking in a regular paid fare inventory bucket?

CARRIER ORDER
Rebook in the following carrier order, depending on frequency of flights and the customer’s best interest:
• Own airline
• Star Alliance member airline
• Non-Star Alliance member airline (OAL)

Courtesy of the Star Alliance Employees manual...

I have always had my Star Alliance IRROPS flights rebooked into revenue ticket buckets (paid and award)

PVDtoDEL

OP is entitled to it, but most *A airlines don't train their staff to do that. Indeed, most frontline get no training about award tix at all other than "don't touch them"

worldtraveller73

This always seems to be one of those "learn the hard way" situations.

I always travel with this manual in the laptop. I've yet to show it, usually because I do my own homework with IRROPS and have alternatives to present to the ticket agents if the suggested solution isn't any good. So far, I've never had to "remind" them.