Ask Gadling: You missed your flight

by Meg Nesterov on


Even in this day and age of flight delays and cancellations, it’s always not the airline’s fault that you miss your flight. It happens: you oversleep, get stuck in traffic, or just run late on the way to the airport and miss your flight. A few months ago, my husband and I were heading out of Istanbul for the weekend and because of unusually long security lines and non-functional check-in kiosks, our flight closed just before we got to the check-in counter and we missed the flight. Turkish Airlines rebooked and ticketed us on another flight with a small change fee. Recently, some visiting friends missed their flight home though they were *at the gate* due to a last-minute gate change and zero announcements. Despite the fact that other passengers made the same mistake, they paid a change fee plus the fare difference, and they were also flying Turkish Airlines.

So what can you do if you miss your flight?

View more Ask Gadling: Travel Advice from an Expert or send your question to ask [at] gadling [dot] com.
  1. Proceed to the airport check in counter – There used to be an unwritten “flat tire” rule that meant if you got a flat tire en route, you could show up and be put on the next flight with no charge. That rule seems to have gone the way of the free meal in coach, but many airlines may still try to help depending on demand and schedules. If you are on your way but think you will miss the check in cut off time but not the departure time, try calling the airline in case they are able to check you in and then rush you to the gate. Even if you know you will miss your flight, your odds of being rebooked are better if you are physically at the airport than if you go back home or to your hotel. You may even still make the fight if you can (politely, please!) push through security if you tell other passengers you are about to miss your flight.
  2. Use your status if you have it – If you are flying an airline you hold status with, now is the time to call the Gold desk. Flying a full-fare or upper class ticket can also help. This is not to say you should threaten anyone or act self-important, you want to show you are a valuable customer who would greatly appreciate being accommodated. Missed flights are another good case for travel insurance, if you’ve ensured your trip, you may be able to be rebooked for free.
  3. Be calm and flexible – It may not be your fault that your taxi driver took the long way to the airport, but you’re still in the weaker position and at the mercy of the ticketing agent. It won’t help to be difficult or angry. Additionally, being flexible about your routing can help, especially if you’ve missed the last direct flight of the day. Ask about connections or even flights to neighboring cities where you can take a train or drive the rest of the way. The day we missed our flight out of Istanbul to Pristina, we ended up on the next flight – to Prague. Your travel plans may not always be so flexible, but getting a seat on a connecting flight may mean you get home – or on vacation – faster.

Gadling readers: what’s your experience been when you’ve missed a flight? What airlines do you find to be the most accommodating?

Woman makes bomb threat to delay boss’ plane

by Katie Hammel on

At some point, most travelers will either come close to missing a flight, or actually miss it and have to wait for the next one. It’s not a fun situation to be in – praying that you make it, or that your flight is delayed just a few minutes so that you can get on it, and then sitting in the airport for hours if you do miss the plane – but it’s certainly not one that justifies faking a bomb threat.

Yet that’s exactly what one woman is accused of doing in order to help out her boss, who was running late to catch his flight from Miami to Honduras.

Officials at the Miami Airport received a call and an email on Wednesday saying there was a bomb on the American Airlines plane. They searched the plane, but found no bomb, and then traced the email to 31-year old Claudia De La Rosa’s computer. She was arrested and is now being held on $7,500 bail.

During questions, the woman said that she had made her boss run late and, worried that he would miss his plane, she decided to call in the bomb threat. She figured the bomb search would delay the plane long enough for her boss to arrive and get on the flight.

A little lesson for the over-achieving assistants out there: no job is worth getting arrested for and calling in a bomb threat is never a good idea. Just let your boss miss his plane.

[via USA Today]

Ryanair fumbles check-in, hundreds delayed

by Katie Hammel on

Hundreds of Ryanair passengers were left behind on Sunday, when a shortage of check-in desks caused them to miss their flights out of London’s Stansted Airport. The airline, which encourages passengers to check in online, only opened 11 check-in desks on one of the UK’s busiest travel weekends of the year, when 255 flights were scheduled to depart. 23 desks were open the previous weekend.

Over 500 passengers missed their flights. Ryanair issued an apology saying that their baggage handler, Swissport, (who also issued an apology statement) was short-staffed.

As of October, the point will be moot though, as Ryanair will no longer offer airport check-in. The airline has also announced that plans are in the works to eliminate baggage-handling as well. Passengers would need to carry their own bags up to the airplane doors.

Paying for the toilets, loading your own luggage, standing on flights. . .what’s next Ryanair? I’m guessing the planes won’t even bother to land, and we’ll just need to parachute out at our destination.

[via Breaking Travel News]

If you miss a flight because of a long check in line it can cost you money

by Jamie Rhein on

If you’re one of those people who scoff at the two-hour a head of time check-in schedule recommended by airlines, check out this story that Christopher Elliot posted on his website, Elliot.org. A woman showed up on Jan. 5, two hours and twenty minutes before her American Airlines flight from Orlando back to Japan, but the line was so slow that she was denied boarding by the time it was her turn. It cost her $2,600 more to get back to Japan because American Airlines originally said it was her problem, not theirs.

Since this happened, American Airlines, according to Elliot has agreed to send the woman a voucher for $2,600 for air travel. Although this a decent gesture, still she’s out the money.

While reading Elliot’s recounting of the woman’s tale where she describes telling the agent that she was afraid of missing her flight and the agent brushed her off, I’m wondering if getting riled up might have helped. After all, it seems as if the airline was not keeping up with their part of the bargain. About an hour before the flight, I might have really started to get pushy–a bit forceful. By that time, being sweetly polite would have been brushed aside.

I might be wrong, but from the way the situation was described, I’m picturing a mild, nice woman who is trying to be heard in a crowd. Depending on the nature of the staff person you’re dealing with, such a person often gets ignored. The person in the business suit with the no nonsense voice gets further.

There’s a balance between being forceful and going so far that you might have security on top of you, but if the airline doesn’t staff enough people to handle the volume, one has to have a voice loud enough to be reckoned with.

After reading the comments left on Elliot’s post, it seems that this is not an isolated instance. Some have suggested folks should arrive three hours before a flight to be safe, particularly on high volume travel days. I still don’t get why she just wasn’t put on the next available flight without any charges. Too bad there isn’t a time-card punch so you can prove exactly what time you arrived. Maybe that’s the next step.

By the way, because she was flying internationally, she couldn’t check in on her own at a kiosk so that wouldn’t have been a solution.