A missed connection down under
Question: I recently flew from Minneapolis to Sydney, Australia, on United Airlines. My first leg from Minneapolis to Denver was delayed, so United rebooked me on a Northwest Airlines flight to Los Angeles in order to meet up with my flight to Sydney. I ended up missing my connection anyway because the Northwest flight also had a mechanical problem, which delayed its arrival by about an hour.
Northwest would not accept any responsibility for its lateness. United paid for my hotel and gave me meal vouchers, plus a telephone card so that I could call my family and let them know I wouldn’t be arriving in Sydney until the next day.
I asked the airline if I could access my bags, but it said they were locked up in storage. When checking in for my flight the next night, I asked two different agents about my bags and was assured they would have to travel with me because of security rules. They checked their computer and said my belongings were definitely in storage and would automatically be put on my flight when I checked in.
But when I landed in Sydney, I discovered that the bags hadn’t made the flight. They didn’t show up until the next day. United has offered me a $100 voucher for the trouble, but I don’t think it’s enough. I’d like United to send me a free domestic ticket to compensate me for the frustration suffered along with the loss of a day of my trip to Australia.
– Gai Skramstad, Excelsior, Minn.
Answer: Talk about bad luck. No matter how hard you tried, it seems you just weren’t meant to make your originally scheduled flight to Australia. But who’s responsible?
Here’s how I see it: You bought your tickets on United Airlines, so any compensation beyond the hotel and meal voucher would be up to that airline, not Northwest. Besides, your second flight delay wasn’t long enough to merit any compensation, even though you eventually missed your flight to Sydney because of it.
As far as I can tell, United handled your case by the book. When it saw that you wouldn’t make your Sydney flight, it rebooked you on a different one so that you could catch up to it. When that didn’t work, it put you up in a hotel and gave you meal vouchers in accordance with its contract of carriage, the legal agreement between you and the airline.
Airlines typically don’t compensate passengers for missed vacation days. As I read United’s contract, I’m not sure that your request for a free airline ticket based on the long layover in Los Angeles can be justified.
United screwed up in only one way — mishandling your luggage. But again, its contract doesn’t provide for a free ticket for a delay in delivering your personal items to you. It only spells out what the airline will do if it loses your belongings.
Although the delays you experienced weren’t preventable, you could have made your layover in Los Angeles more comfortable by packing a change of clothes and all your needed toiletries in your carry-on luggage. That way, you wouldn’t have needed to access your luggage for a day or two.
Certainly, a lot of things went wrong on your trip to Australia, but most of those things were beyond United’s control. Still, the airline agreed that your flights could have gone better. After I mentioned your case to the airline, a company representative contacted you and, noting that your circumstances “warrant special consideration,” issued you another $100 travel voucher.
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