alibi

Hi,

I was flying HAM-ARN-GOT yesterday evening. As the incoming ARN-GOT flight was delayed by 35 minutes (only one runway in HAM at the moment) and I had a shortish connection in ARN, I asked at check-in if they could reroute me via CPH. Apparently the handling agent in HAM is not able to do that, so I had to take the flight to ARN. I foolishly believed them that the flight to GOT would probably wait - it usually does as it is the last flight of the day.

Well, it didn't and I was stuck in ARN. Can't complain about the hotel (Clarion), but I'm wondering if I can claim EU261 compensation. The runway closing was planned, but apparently there was an incident with a smaller plane earlier that day, so SAS will argue exceptional circumstances. On the other hand, rerouting me via CPH would have allowed me to arrive with little to no delay.

What are the carrier's obligation here to avoid delays?

Thanks

Andreas

fassy

It is normal procedure to make the pax fly their original itinerary and solve any connection problems at the connection airport. It could have been the case that the flight recovered some of the time or your connecting flight was delayed as well.

You will only get rebooked from the first flight on if the first flight is cancelled (or you were very lucky finding a willing agent). Anyway, they were in no way responsible to you book you HAM-CPH-GOT because HAM-ARN was late.

Try to claim the compensation and move on.

Often1

I am presuming that by the Clarion being "nice enough" that it was covered. Thus, duty of care met.

As to delay/cancellation under EC 261/2004, that will depend on which flight it was that was delayed and why. The planned runway closure for an inbound won't likely do it, but if there was an unrelated incident closing access to the airport, that would likely be "extraordinary" and could not have been remedied.

There is no right to be rebooked because you might misconnect. As you can see, carriers would prefer to take the risk of a misconnect, even if it entails paying delay compensation, than proactively reroute.

alibi

Thank you. I'm not particularly upset about not being rebooked (although it's stupid), was just hoping that it would strengthen my case.

I will report back when I receive a reply from SAS.

oliver2002

AHS in HAM is probably not even authorised to rebook unless there is a clear waiver/instruction from SK ops in CPH. You could have called SK directly and rebook, which BTW is strongly advised whenever you run into irreg in outstations. The call center can rebook you and send it for reissue or (if time is short) rebook/prepare everything and the airport office can reissue.

fassy

Yes, did that a couple of times but usually get stonewalled asking for a routing change due to possible misconnect based on late departure of the first segment.

FlyingMoose

Call the the .dk EBD number and inform them about your spend with the company. Have had _zero_ issues getting a rerouting of choice.

Like Oliver2002 suggests, I also always call the EBD line instead of trying to use local airport assistance. Even at SK hubs those are clueless to the bone and blatantly rude, at one point in CPH I was asked why I pressed the "Gold member" button while I was only Diamond. That was not a good start of the conversation I can assure you.

The good thing about the call center is that they will have a look what to rebook you on and once you are in agreement they will just call you back when the ticket is issued. That usually allows you to start moving to the respective gate. Some airports do not have rebooking support for all airlines behind security and you end up making that dance again otherwise. Especially now all relevant airlines have iOS Apps you don't have to bother finding a ticket machine either.

fassy

I think your spending level is a couple of hundred thousand SEK higher than mine. While I re-qualify for EBD I do it the painful way with intra-European Y and just occasional long-haul C (if I'm lucky and OT clears , otherwise Y here as well) and some more long-haul on *A (also most of the time in Y or PE).

I always call the Swedish EBD line which usually is very competent and willingly but I couldn't convince them to pro-actively reroute me. Might be also because you probably are traveling full-flex Plus while I am mostly flying on cheapest Go

UltraRant

I also experienced what OP states, on several airlines. Usually you just have to see how far you get on your itinerary and when you get stuck, find help. I also have found myself in a few airports, stuck for a few hours, or even nights.

It's not always a bad thing. I found myself once on a Swiss flight that was delayed for no obvious reason known to the average flier. Missed my intercontinental connection, got to the service center, made the guy rebook me on the only possible connection I knew about (he couldn't find it without my help), as it was basically halfway across the Americas extra. In addition, I ended up in a more expensive booking class, giving me over 10000 miles extra, plus a 600 Euro compensation, which made that my flight was almost for free.
I also asked the agent in OSL to just rebook me on beforehand via LH, as it would be seriously more convenient for me and the airlines. They refused. Pointed it out in the correspondence with Swiss, pointed out how it would have been much cheaper for them, ore convenient for me and much less trouble for everyone involved, then got the explanation given in the first paragraph.

What I recommend you do:
1) program the Diamond hotline in your phone. Call them as soon as you notify irrops. see if they can help you via the phone. No guarantees, though.
2) Claim the 250 euro (or whatever it should be) anyway. DO NOT IN ANY WAY mention the planned closure of the runway, the incident or anything else. Do not be an apologist and do not give them ammunition to reject your claim, especially not if you're not 100% certain about some things. In addition: if you knew about the runway closure at HAM, then SK knew about it and probably anticipated on it. That removes the excuse.

So, go on and claim. See how far you get.

I actually once had good luck with getting rebooked when flying from NCE to OSL via ZRH. there was a thunderstorm between ZRH and FRA, disrupting all flight traffic. Agent in NCE contacted headquarters and got a go, so I got rebooked via VIE. Now that's what I call service.