Thunderroad

The United CSR misled the landlord by telling her that it would not be a problem for UA to change the ticket itself. Then the OTA went ahead and canceled it. Then the GA couldn't be bothered to extend some effort and compassion to help the passenger.

Lots of blame to go around here. But it apparently starts with UA changing a ticket it apparently was not supposed to change without the OTA getting involved. And that reflects on poor training or supervision of its CSRs and/or a poor system for monitoring tickets purchased through third parties.

UA owes the passenger more than a bunch of flowers. Like a big apology, for starters.

cfischer

huh, where is it stated that UA cannot and should not change the ticket? This happens every day without any issues whatsoever.

sbm12

Yup. Just like Delta, AA, Southwest, JetBlue and every other airline that uses a traditional GDS. Which, by the way, is basically all of them.

The passenger no longer had a ticket. Why would a GA allow a non-ticketed passenger to fly?

Except that there shouldn't be a problem for UA to make a change on a ticket, especially on day of travel. That's a completely normal transaction.

Yup. And it shouldn't have.
Again, no. There is no reason the TA has to be involved. And a TA voiding a ticket because it was changed directly with the airline is shady as hell.

Often1

Rubbish. Completely wrong.

UA, as well as pretty much all IATA carriers, will take over a ticket on the day of travel. Many will take it over for a fee prior to the day of travel, but that is not relevant to this incident. What UA did here was completely routine and in no way caused anything "bad" to happen to the ticket. That is a good thing for almost all passengers. When changes need to be made on the day of travel, there is no guarantee that the TA can be reached, that the TA can make a change, reissue a ticket and push it back to the carrier. This is all something pretty much any airport agent can do in a minute or two with the passenger standing there or by phone.

Plain and simple the TA should not have cancelled the ticket. The fact that it was changed is meaningless. Tickets are changed constantly so, unless there is some part of this story which has not been reported, this was plain old stupidity or spite on the part of the TA.

Without a ticket, you do not fly. It's that simple. Always has been and always will be.

The only thing that makes this situation sensational news is that the passenger's mother was dying.

The people here who think that IATA carriers ought to change what has worked for 60+ years and will continue to work just fine whether they like it or not, are dreaming and want a separate set of rules because they actually have fallen for the cr**py journalism in the reported story.

mahasamatman

What's even less well known is that you can call the airline and request that the ticket be "locked" with a password, and that nothing can be done to the ticket without that password. I had to do that once when someone got hold of my PNR.

(Or at least that was true 10 years ago.)

docbert

What would you have them do?

They can't just let the passenger board without a ticket. They won't be on the manifest, and that breaks all sorts of laws.

I'm presuming a GA can't just create a new ticket/coupon for free to get them onto the flight. I'm sure someone (supervisor?) can, but odds are there wasn't one there (especially at an out-station like COS)

The passenger was almost certainly boarding in group 3 or later. By the time the passenger boarded, they realized the issue and offloaded her they had to be at no more than 10-15 minute before departure time, probably less by the time they worked out what was going on. Anything they did do would have likely delayed the flight, which would have potentially impacted other passengers possible even to the point of missed connections (especially with DEN's amazingly short MCT anyway).

It's easy to say they should have helped out more, and in a perfect world that's a valid observation to make - but in the real world it's normally not that simple, and any such actions could potentially have serious side effects.

Two Bee

DELETE

katan

In general, I see that we have an easy vantage of the day after to analyze all the steps taken by the customer, travel agent or the airline.

I'd like to understand more the triggers for "fraud protection" by agents that cause an agent to cancel a reservation. There are so many things happening in real time that i can't imagine they can use a simple standard procedure to manage changes to tickets.

Two Bee

DELETE

djohannw

One more thing that seems strange to me on this...my understanding of airline tickets is that every coupon has it's own status - once issued and paid it goes to open, then moves to "airport control" once it is used to check-in for the segment, and finally once the flight is boarded (so once you pass the scanner) it moves to "flown". Also my understanding is that a ticket can only be voided when the coupon status is either "open" or "airport control", so unless the agency got someone at UA to manually revert the coupon from flown (as the passenger was on board already) to either open or airport control, they should not be able to cancel the ticket.

So the question would be who made it possible for the OTA to cancel the ticket, and why was there not more scrutiny along this process to make sure that this cancellation was indeed appropriate?

Greetings - Dirk

FlyerTalker70

My (limited) understanding in having to book business travel through corporate travel agents/portals was that once the clock struck T-48 the reservation was handed over to the airline who has ultimate control over the itinerary. In particular, I specifically recall calling UA to try to upgrade a flight booked through our corporate travel agent only to be told, "we can't process upgrades until T-48" since the airline holds the reservation until then and changes can't be made unless we hold the reservation. Hence, since this ticket was booked last minute that would mean UA would have held the itinerary entirely and there should be nothing the travel agent could say or do to touch the reservation.

That being said you would think UA would tread carefully with deplaning passengers given the Dao controversy especially if the ticket was booked last minute by an agent which would strongly indicate that this was a case of emergency travel (who buys tickets last minute these days?) Also who buys tickets from a agent or even OTA these days? Unless I see a special price on flights from an OTA I almost always book direct with the airline for this exact reason.

Ber2dca

First of all, that article is highly tendentious and sentimentalist crap. By no means out of the ordinary in today's landscape of course, but still it has to be said. The facts are mentioned but dressed up in a way to evoke an emotional response blaming United rather than the travel agent or the landlord for that matter, like ending with a quote from the landlord dismissing United's gesture. Let's be real here, a quality outlet should report stories of note in a factual manner, not trivial sob stories aimed at evoking outrage.

With regard to the story itself, United did nothing wrong here. UA's agents were right that it shouldn't be a problem for the change to be made. They have no way of anticipating possibly hyper-vigilant OTA staff. United were also right not to let someone fly whose ticket was cancelled and payment for that flight was charged back. This is normal and understandable business practice and a sob story from the passenger cannot be allowed to interfere with that as many, many scams rely on emotional manipulation of staff.

Artpen100

matrixwalker2012

Often1

That is one way to look at it.

Another way is that the NYT published a poorly-reported story which was not properly researched because it is a human interest not a real news story on an important event. If the reporter had done a proper job or his editor forced him to, this story, if reportable at all, would have included a clear explanation of how ticketing works.

There are tons of threads on FT about passengers' poor experiences with various OTA's and opaque web sites. The reason those are not reported by the NYT is because the passenger did not have a dying relative.

Yeah, UA will take a hit here, but it is undeserved and not likely that it can do much. It will wind up doing something for the woman and that will just make UA look worse.

Why the TA cancelled the ticket is beyond me. Tickets are changed constantly. UA has had an SDC program for 10+ years. IRROPS have ocurred since the beginning of commercial aviation and passengers have changed their mind. If there was some indication of fraud, that would be good to know because it changes the entire story line.