I've been flying quite a lot, but I haven't heard of this happening before - so, asking for advice here:

A friend of mine is trying to fly from London to New York with Delta.
She got her ticket through Expedia.

Her flight was cancelled, and Delta won't put her on another flight because "her ticket was booked through a third agent", and they basically told her to make Expedia deal with it, it's not Delta's problem.
She is still waiting for a flight out arranged through expedia, while Delta has half a dozen flights a day on the route.

I am very tempted to call BS on the reply of the Delta agent.
I know for a fact that this is against European legislation on Delta's part, if someone has a valid ticket for a flight here, the operator has a duty of care (including rebooking on first available flight, accommodation and food in the meantime, etc.) irrespective of where the passenger got the ticket from.
I rarely fly with US-registered airlines, and I don't know if this would also be against FAA rules ...

So, what is the forum verdict?
Can this happen because the ticket was booked through expedia, or did the Delta agent just Bull his way out and my friend was gullible (rather, is gullible - still stuck in London)?

That's ridiculous. DL is responsible for rebooking. Given the chaos in Europe right now I expect some exhausted CS agent was just trying to get rid of your friend. Have her call back.

Nope, I have seen that happen first hand. I will ALWAYS book direct through the airline after seeing a weather related cancellation while flying on American.
Person after person were told to contact their booking agent for rebooking, American wouldn't do it. Fortunately I had booked direct on American and they rebooked me straight away. But it left a ton of people clammering for there cell phones to call expedia, Orbitz or whoever they used for the original ticket.

Quite a sight........

Exactly !!

However I agree partially with the others. Expedia is responsible for the rebooking, but it is not as if Delta is not allowed to. The agent was probably taking care of DL passengers who booked thru DL and left the Expedia passengers for Expedia. Another time, the agent may have handled it differently.

BTW, this is not necessarily bad. I am assuming the flight canceled because of the weather - and the other flights were booked. DL would keep the passenger on DL, whereas Expedia could look for another carrier.

There is another alternative. I know this is not a popular view on FT but a high quality and responsible travel agent with whom you have a good personal relationship can do even more for you when a flight is cancelled than even the airline themselves. For one thing, you can reach the travel agent on the phone when the airline phone lines are busy. And the travel agent may find out your flight is cancelled and notify you long before you find out for yourself.

Interesting.
I have never heard of something like this happening - that is, a difference being made by the airline between people buying the ticket from the airline directly and through a travel agent.

It is really good to know, at least I won't be completely surprised if something like this happens next time I fly through the US.
Strangely, I had weather-related cancellations in the US before, having booked my ticket through orbitz or a local EU agent, and I've never had a similar problem, or at least I didn't notice it. (But then, usually I was stuck in a small airport in the end of nowhere, so the staff didn't have to deal with that many people.)


(Actually - just out of curiosity I checked with a guy I know with the Civil Aviation Authority ... he confirmed that this is illegal here.
If this is standard operating procedure with the airline and not an isolated incident, in theory they could be very heavily fined by the European regulator.
I think I'll encourage my friend to report DL to the CAA.)

That is NOT my experience with our mandatory corporate travel agency (BCD). Hours to reissue a ticket. Only once have they found a seat on another airline (UA) that the original airline (AA) couldn't find, but I found the seat myself before talking to either AA or BCD (turned out that UA was blocking the inventory from AA so we had to book as a new ticket purchase).

These days, I book either directly with the airline (for domestic flights) or via a travel agent (for my complicated overseas work travel). I have in the past been screwed by exactly the situation that mivadar describes, which is why I don't use Web booking sites for anything except searching for fares. Orbitz/Expedia can be very aggravating to deal with on any irrops issue, and the carrier will refuse to make any changes on an agent-issued ticket.

That said, JerryFF's point about having a travel agent that you know personally doesn't always do much for you either. I like my travel agent well enough, but she is not at work 24/7, and since I do a lot of overseas travel, many of my re-routing snafus tend to happen when her office is closed. I get routed to the "after hours" service, which is some faceless call center God knows where. Inevitably, they are completely clueless and take hours--if not days--to get the problem sorted out. Not fun. Sometimes it just makes more sense to book directly with the airline, at least if your routing is on a single carrier.

Odd. I book everything through a corporate travel portal which is "Travel Online from Orbitz Worldwide Powered by Traversa" - so I'm not really clear whether that's Orbitz or not.

But I've never had an issue getting automatically re-booked or treated in any way other than like a direct customer.

In any case, my next call would be to Orbitz to see if they can fix it. If not, then back to Delta with the additional findings. I'd certainly try that before invoking "European legislation". I find agents don't take kindly to going the legal route.

I wouldn't go the legal route to fix the flight - I doubt it ever works. In the immediate situation it does nothing except aggravate the airline representative.

In this particular case, my friend booked the ticket through expedia, DL told her to basically bugger off, and (probably because of the wide-spread European disruption) the expedia call center was completely unreachable (on hold for hours ... even their website was partially down).
AFAIK she is still in the UK, and will be spending Christmas there.

I would invoke the "European legislation" route, not now in the airport, but writing a mail from the comfort of my home after the whole thing is over. Not to solve the individual problem (hopeless), but hoping that if enough complaints are made, the airline will change its procedure in the future.
This is not a question of suing the airline - it is a report to an industry regulator about unlawful practice ... after putting a few pieces of paper in an envelope, I would never have to touch the issue again.

(And the regulation route does eventually work - there are some budget and foreign airlines in Europe that tried to systematically refuse compensation/rebooking/accommodation in the past citing their own "conditions of carriage", and after relatively few proven incidents, and the usual year or so of legal wrangle between the regulator and the airline, had to change their SOP or face a flight ban.)

Anyway ...
no use getting worked up - I was just surprised by the whole thing. Storing away the information.
My personal reaction to a DL guy telling me to contact expedia/orbitz because DL is not responsible would have been an outward big smile and a "surely you are mistaken", and an inward "and again they are lying to me and try to weasel out".