StefanNYC

Executive summary: I missed my flight out of JFK T1 because I was turned away by security while having a perfectly valid boarding pass (and it was too late to obtain another one from the airline, Aeroflot). Who should be held accountable for this and how could I go about it?

Details:
I checked in online for an Aeroflot flight, JFK-SVO, well in advance, printed my BP, and headed for the airport.
The Aeroflot site:
http://www.aeroflot.ru/cms/en/online_registration
Print your own boarding pass. After arriving at the airport you do not have to go to a check-in counter

the email from Aeroflot that contained my boarding pass:
Kindly note that you will be required to carry a printout of this boarding pass to pass Security Control

and the boarding pass itself all state in plain and clear language: This boarding pass is, well, my pass through security. But the T1 staff had a different idea. They told me I had to contact the Aeroflot check-in desk in order to obtain a new boarding pass. Well, it was too late for that: being sure I had no business at the checkin counter (and of course having no baggage), I arrived just shy of 1 hour before departure. I ended up at the Aeroflot sales desk, where there was a short line... as a result, by the time I got to show my boarding pass to somebody and to try to explain to them that it was, well, valid a boarding pass, it was too late.

I spent the next hour+ trying to figure out who is responsible for such a "policy". Obviously, I had flown through T1 myriads of times before (true enough, last time with Aeroflot was a couple of years ago, before they allowed OLCI in the US) and never had to go to the checkin counter. A boarding pass is a boarding pass, right?

The Aeroflot people (agent and station manager) changed their story as the discussion progressed (surprise, surprise). At first they tried to convince me that my boarding pass was, well, not a boarding pass; failing that, they switched to the "Well, yes, it's not your fault, we have indeed had people reach the gate with such kind of boarding passes... but the terminal's policy in this respect is somehow inconsistent" line. I then proceeded to confront the security personnel, to be told... you guessed it: "We're acting upon instructions from Aeroflot; go talk to them". The best I have been able to extract from those people was a statement that this policy is instituted by the terminal manager.

This has left me really frustrated. The very least I want is an official explanation: who has ordered boarding passes not to be treated as boarding passes, and how come this is not clearly communicated to passengers (in fact, as show above, the exact opposite is clearly communicated to them). I guess it would be too naive these days to expect that one could claim any sort of compensation for missing a flight through a combined fault of the airline and the airport... or not?

RadioGirl

I sympathise with your experience. I once flew GVA-ZRH-HKG-SYD (not on Aeroflot) and had self-printed BPs. They were accepted at GVA (where I went to the counter to check in luggage but they didn't reprint the BP) and in transit at ZRH, but the security checkpoint in HKG insisted I go to the transit counter and get a "real" BP.

Unfortunately it was the weekend of the QF labor lockout and the transit desk was mobbed with stranded QF passengers trying to rearrange flights, so I waited for over an hour just to get another piece of paper with the same data; fortunately I had a long connection so I made my flight, but it was a stupid and frustrating experience.

You can't really get an official response from the agent and station manager at JFK. If anyone can give an official response, it will be the corporate headquarters. (For some companies - and I don't know Aeroflot at all - no one is going to give an official response. )

My advice would be a short, factual letter to Aeroflot summarising the event. (Actual letters on paper receive more attention than emails.) I would use both the top (Russian) address on this page: http://www.aeroflot.ru/cms/en/about/queries as well as the New York office address at the bottom of the page, and indicate "Customer Service" on the envelope. Include a printout of the website where it says you don't need to go to the counter, and a copy of the original BP and any other documentation you have. Despite your understandable frustration, keep emotion and sarcasm out of the letter. Keep details to the absolute minimum: you followed the advice on the website; with only hand luggage you arrived 1 hr before departure; security refused to let you through; the discussion with the desk agent took so long that you missed the flight. Don't ascribe motives or incompetence to the JFK staff but factually record what you were told. Then request, in this order: (a) clarification of the website advice, (b) that this advice be changed if it is not factual (eg, if there is a local policy at JFK, the website should reflect that) and (c) compensation for any direct costs of the delay (buying another ticket, hotel costs, cancellation of bookings in Moscow, etc).

It may not do anything, but a formal letter is probably your only chance of a real answer.

AllieKat

It's a Russian airline, and they probably haven't trained security on their use of e-boarding passes. Yeah. Russians...

MSPeconomist

Does Aeroflot offer electronic boarding passes? If so, can they be used at JFK? I would assume not.

BTW, does anyone know of other airlines at JFK (T1) whose OLCI printed boarding passes aren't accepted by TSA? Is SU the only example where we know that this has occurred? In particular, did the OP notice TSA accepting other boarding passes that were printed during OLCI before coming to the airport?

nrr

File a complaint with DOT.
[Essentially, you printed a bp (via OLCI), which Aeroflot said to do, but they instructed TSA not to accept them.]
Do they have check-in kiosks at T1? Could you have printed a bp from one of them--avoiding waiting in line to see an agent.

AllieKat

It's Aeroflot, the whole operation is a joke. I don't think all airlines understand the concept of paperless.

I flew Wizz Air for the first time this summer (NEVER again, the non-reclining seats actually are tipped slightly FORWARD causing massive back pain after the flight!) - they insisted on printing me a boarding pass when I checked in, telling me the mobile boarding passes often have trouble scanning at the gate.

What's. The. Point. Then? Oh, yeah, to avoid the boarding pass fee. They charge a few to print boarding passes. Except for when they insist on printing you one, for free, because they know their free boarding pass option causes problems.

StefanNYC

Thanks to everybody for all the advice!

Thanks. I'll do this. (Part of the problem, of course, is that there are two parties involved in this mess — the airline and the airport — and in my conversations yesterday they basically ended up blaming each other. Surprise, surprise.) I won't lie though: I did not arrive 1 hour before departure (50 min is more like it — but when everything works as it should work, it's quite enough. Obviously, any "real" security delays would be my own risk, which I willingly take: I have to work, not only fly...).

Apparently not for international flights, and certainly not out of JFK.

Good question. Sure enough, not only did I notice TSA accepting OLCI BPs at T1 before — I've used them dozens of times myself, without a slightest issue. I do believe though that all of those occasions were with AF. The lady at the checkpoint told me "unofficially" that apparently they only accept such BPs from AF and LH. Which, if this is indeed the case, kind of shifts the blame from SU onto T1 (although it doesn't change the fact that what I have been told by SU, on their website and in their email, is a lie).

StefanNYC

Not for SU.
Judging by what the Aeroflot people initially told me, it would have been pointless anyway. Because initially they mentioned that I needed a "real" BP for "passport control". Passport control. On departure from the US. Right. Further into the conversation, they made it more precise that *they* wanted to check my passport etc. My reply that that's what gate agents are for, in the civilized world at any rate, didn't meet much understanding...

Palal

So I had a similar thing with AM also at T1 back in June (?) 2014. DL printed my BP in BOS for BOS-JFK (DL) JFK-MEX (AM). Had to run to the closed check-in counter to get the AM BP re-printed. Made the flight.

I just sent a complaint to JFK T1, USDOT and the carrier.

Anything to bash a Russian airline, eh? In this case it's JFK T1, not "their security." Though given that JFK T1 is worse than many 3rd world airports.....

cestmoi123

Bizarre situation. I've never had an issue with security at JFK not accepting an OLCI home printed boarding pass, on any airline.

My hunch, and it's just a hunch, is that this is Aeroflot's doing, since, while I suppose you could mock up your own fake boarding pass and use it to get through security, you could do that with an Air France, or Delta, or whomever BP as well, so if that were TSA's actual concern, they wouldn't limit it to just Aeroflot.

Occam's Razor says that Aeroflot at JFK, for some reason (likely that they're not set up to passport check at the gate) wants you to go to the checkin counter.

pontevecchio

Why is this the fault of Aeroflot? Surely T1 security is not their responsibility?.

RadioGirl

Yes, but if the airline knows that JFK won't accept the BP, then their website is misleading. If the airline doesn't know whether JFK security will accept it or not, they should find out instead of saying on their website that you can use the self-printed BP. If the airline itself doesn't accept a self-printed BP, their website shouldn't say it will. In any case there it appears there's a fault with the advice on Aeroflot's website.

(And I notice the website is rather ambiguous - it says you can do Aeroflot OLCI for airports where you can do Aeroflot OLCI. Since it allowed you to do OLCI for a flight out of JFK, I would assume it's "an airport where you can do Aeroflot OLCI." But there may be an IT issue.)
Sure, not suggesting you lie; I was just being brief.
Again, this points to a problem with the advice on Aeroflots' website.

Often1

Neither JFK nor T1 have anything to do with who is admitted through the checkpoint. That is solely the decision of TSA. I would start there with a complaint enclosing a copy of the BP. Depending on what you hear back from TSA, you may or may not have a complaint against SU.

seawolf

What do you mean by turned away? Did they just glanced at it and tell you to get a "real" one or did they scan the barcode and it wouldn't scan?

If it is the later, than the problem lies with SU. PreCheck OLCI barcodes are required to be digitally signed for authentication by the airline and coordinated with the TSA. Not 100% sure if there is a requirement for that as well for non-PreCheck airlines.

GUWonder

I was once denied use of my boarding pass at JFK just prior to the WTMD (at a sort of boarding pass and ID check) and told to get my boarding pass reissued at the check-in counter. This was close to a decade ago, so I have to have my records checked to see which carrier was the operating carrier, which was the ticketing carrier, which was the marketing carrier, and which terminal it was at JFK -- it was a low number terminal IIRC. It was truly a bizarre situation compared to what else I've experienced in the US -- no less so because it had nothing to do with needing a visa or passport to travel. The boarding pass's scanability wasn't the issue.