Jacksong

So I have flights to Hawaii coming up which involve SAS LHR-CPH-LAX and then United LAX-KOA. Due to a schedule change this has left the connection time at LAX as 1hr 45m which SAS claim is ok because the MCT at LAX is 40m. They don't seem to understand that that is for domestic to domestic and that noone clears US customs in 40 minutes normally, let alone gets their bags, rechecks them and hotfoots it from TBIT to Terminal 7. They don't seem to accept that the published MCT for international to domestic at LAX is 2 hours - very very strange! For my part I don't want to accept something below the MCT (and a connect time that I know from experience isn't achievable - had to try this before due to a delayed flight) to then miss the connection and be stuck with limited SAS representation in LAX to assist me with the onward travel and then to have the EU261 claim rejected due to me knowingly accepting an unachievable connection.

I offered to overnight in LAX and fly the following morning but they can't accommodate us on that flight without downgrading us to Y (we're flying in J) because "there is no business class available on that flight, only first and economy" - it's a two class domestic US flight and were already ticketed in First on it! I know what's happening of course - we're booked in Z and the only seats available on that flight are C and because it's another airline they can't/won't book us into the higher far bucket. Currently I've offered to reroute via ITO on the way out on a flight for which Z is available and waiting to see what happens there.

The really crazy bit was they said they wouldn't refund any money if we accepted the downgrade to economy - I'm fairly sure legally they have to refund some money on the cost of the downgraded leg.

Hopefully they'll accept the ITO reroute but my main question to the forum is if it is normal for SAS to behave like this when schedule changes happen ? - I've only used SAS once before and normally use other *A carriers so no personal experience.

thanks

Jacqui

fassy

Call again and be very clear that MCT for INT-DOM is 2 hrs in LAX and that SK has to fix it.

Jacksong

Thanks, it's via a travel agent (Amex) as I couldn't construct the routing myself even though it was a valid ticket offering and they have been back and forth with SAS over several long calls but they are refusing to budge just saying we have to just try for the connection and if we can't make it they'll deal with it then (read leave us stranded in an airport they have no staff at and having to beg united to help us out most likely whilst trying to raise them on the phone).

They won't touch the United leg as I guess it'll cost them money unless we accept a downgrade, won't even reroute us via ITO where there is Z available.

My last ditch right now is shifting our departure forward to the Friday so we overnight in LAX before flying on. Doesn't really impact the pocket (well except for the dollar rate!) as we were originally overnighting at CPH anyway. It does seem an excessively obstinate stance but my guess is that it is all financial as they would have to pay United cash to do anything and with the dollar being as strong as it is right now that get's expensive for them.

fassy

Your onward journey is with UA, you would deal with UA anyway. They will take care. No point in looking for SAS staff in LAX.

Had many connections missed in the US, and always UA took care, no matter if arriving with SK, LH, LX, OS or UA themselves.

Jacksong

Whilst I understand that, and UA have been pretty good to me during IRROPs in the past as well, they're not going to do things like issue hotel vouchers or similar if we end up stuck at LAX for the night - that's very much SAS' responsibility as the carrier that put us in that position. Additionally if we end up in a situation where UA cannot accommodate us due to full flights it then becomes interesting between the two carriers! Mainly I am trying to avoid being in that position in the first place, been there, done that, got the T-shirt, would rather not have another so I work to avoid it.

Circling back to my original question - is this fairly normal behaviour for SAS customer service ? if so it's clearly going to heavily influence any future decision to fly with them.

nacho

SAS left me stranded at yyz alone as they rebooked me to Egypt Air and when we checked in we found out that Egypt Air has a crazy name policy that made me not able to check in. The only way to get me on board was too change my name for the flight. It took me 90 minutes to get through and I am their gold member, the agent changed the name on the wrong reservation and hung up.

Tried calling again and couldn't get a hold of them before the flight departed. I was left behind with 2 checked bags while my husband and kids were on their way home.

I found a spot to call SAS long distance to Denmark and it took me 4:30 to get through. They said I deliberately not to board so they have no responsibility to take care of me anymore. The customer service advice was too find a safe place and find my way home on my own dime.

It was the most expensive time to fly as it's during summer holiday when SK pilots were on strike. A ticket back to Copenhagen was around C$2500 for y on those days.

I got myself home 5 days later.

I got a reply from SAS customer service and all they offered was 600€ and told me to complain to Egypt air (the ticket was issued by SAS).

There is no customer service and they don't care about their customers. I am glad that they cancelled my flight to Japan as I do not want to patronize this airline unless they are willing to refund my expenses as I spent a lot more than 600€ to go home.

CPH-Flyer

Allow me to play the devil's advocate for a bit. SK is actually correct that you have an issue with Egypt Air. And basically an issue of your own making.

You booked a ticket on SK with a less than 100% match to your passport, SK transferred those booking details to an MS ticket, who declined to accept them at check-in. When you called SK to have the name changed, it was a call to fix an issue of your making. Not to fix an issue of SK's making.

When SK failed to get the name changed, you declined MS' offer to sell you an alternative ticket for the flights, if I remember correctly. Which is probably a big part of the reason they flagged you as a no show.

The name on the ticket is the passenger's full responsibility. So unless you can show that the MS ticket was booked with a different name than your input the original SK ticket, the devil's advocate in me would tend to side with SK in that the 600€ is all that you are due, legally speaking.

Taking off my devil's advocate hat, I can see why you would be highly upset with SK, and would not want to fly them again. I probably wouldn't either. But I can still see that the fault is not fully on SK's shoulders due to the name issue.

​​​​​​​Should SK go above and beyond their legal obligations? They probably should, and outside of the strike, they probably would. But there are just too many tickets to deal with right now. Give it a month or so more, and then see if you then can't actually get to speak to a human a bit higher in the hierarchy than an outsourced call centre employee.

nacho

I know the name thing was kind of my fault but the real problem here was a SAS staff made the changes in the wrong reservation and then hung up. Then their customer services couldn't be reached within 90 minutes of wait. I don't want to pay out of my pocket of a ticket that is like CAD 2500 and hoping SAS will give me my money back. SK didn't refund me the points I used for the ticket. I thought they might pay me back the hotel and food as that was the guy on the phone when the Danish office open.

The funny thing was that I booked using my regular name on UA out of YYZ and previously I flew out of YYZ with AC and I flew out of YVR with TK. No issue whatsoever. My full name is much longer than what the ticket can contain anyway.

I even flew Air India without any issues. I did write to MS and they blame the Canadian government.

fassy

@nacho

while your case was a mess, it doesn't help to bring it up over and over and over again. Yes... We get it. But at that point SK and the whole flight operations around the world was in an even worse mess than it is today.

SKs Customer Service works well for me. And yeah, they made a mess from time to time. But so have UA, LH and LX.

nacho

@fassy I know. I will try to link a link to the post I made instead. I wrote this because op was asking about SK customer service and I am trying to give him my side of the story.

I have never been messed up like that with any other airlines and I did fly with quite a few. The worst I ever tried was TK downgraded our status due to changes of their IT system. Old screenshots got our status back.

oliver2002

Your issue should be with Amex as they should have sold you the correct routing. They have to sort this out with the operating airlines as the are literally your agent.

Jacksong

I believe you have misunderstood. Amex did sell me the correct routing - the routing was absolutely fine until SAS did a schedule change 4 days ago and moved the CPH-LAX leg departure to 2.5 hours later in the day changing the connect time in LAX from 4hr25 to 1hr45 in the process. And they have been sorting it out but SAS were absolutely refusing to touch the United leg, despite them ticketing it, under any circumstances and stated to Amex (who offered the recording of this if I needed to go to arbitration/court) that "they just have to accept the connect time and try to make it, and we would sort it out from there if they didn't".

At any rate I got them to move the CPH-LAX leg to a day earlier opting to take advantage of the schedule change to not overnight in CPH but in LAX instead. it's not ideal as I now have an argument with Heathrow parking but it's less hassle than being stuck in LAX waiting for UA to be able to accommodate us to KOA.

nacho

The problem with travel agency tickets is that you need to deal with travel agencies with any kind of changes (including schedule change). Most airlines including SAS won't deal with you but your travel agency. Therefore, you need to go to AMEX and demand them to change your ticket or re-route you.

Jacksong

Ok - So I though this was absolutely clear in my second post that Amex _were_ talking to SAS for me (where I said "they have been back and forth with SAS"). Hence why I stated that Amex had offered to make the recordings of their calls available in the event that I did end up needing to make a 261 claim.

So for 100% clarity,

• Amex booked the correct routing and it was fine until SAS did a schedule change that broke it.
• Amex then took up the schedule change with SAS and SAS refused to budge to the point where Amex were offering to support me in any 261 claim going forward.
• All my communication with SAS was via Amex as my agent.
• The entire routing is all ticketed via SAS, I just used Amex as my agent to construct the routing as I couldn't get the SAS website to offer it and it's easy to get the platinum travel desk to do it for me in those cases.
• as far as I'm aware UK law (which governs my relationship with Amex) places no obligations on them to purchase different flights to reroute me as this isn't a package deal. Just to act as my agent with the airline.

Regardless of that SAS' absolute refusal to make good on fixing an MCT problem they caused by dint of a schedule change, except by downgrading the tickets to economy and refusing to refund any money (which I'm pretty sure isn't legal under UK or EU law), displays an astonishing lack of customer service. My original question was simply whether this was normal for SAS, the rest was just colour commentary - I'm beginning to suspect that it is quite normal for them by the way that everyone seems to want to find some fault with the way the ticket was booked/routed/managed.

Like I said - I fixed it by having Amex talk to SAS and get my departure flights moved a day earlier so I've taken that on myself, doesn't change the indifference to fixing a problem they created.

nacho

I hope AMEX signed you up with an complimentary air help subscription so that you don't have to go after SK yourself when things go south.

I totally agree that it's impossible to find someone who has some sense to talk to in SAS.