George Hobica reports on a nasty practice: Delta, apparently unhappy that some of their passengers had booked cheap tickets on nonstop flights, rebooked those customers onto far less convenient connecting flights. Like cell division, one flight had turned into two.
A friend of Hobica’s bought a New York-Denver nonstop around the holidays for a piddly $138, but…
…a couple of weeks ago, Delta called him and told him he was now on a flight leaving JFK around 6 AM, and he’d have to make a connection both coming and going. Worse, Davis is now flying on regional jets, instead of a big jet.Naturally, he’s not pleased. There are still seats left on the Delta nonstop, but they’re selling for over $600 RT for Davis’ itinerary. It’s pretty clear what happened here: Delta kicked Davis off of the nonstop, and will now sell seats at a much higher fare than he paid to last minute purchasers.
Before anyone says it: Yes, the Delta contract of carriage (pdf) mentions that schedules are subject to change without notice, but that’s not what happened here. The schedule didn’t change, and the flight wasn’t canceled. Only this one ticket changed. The airline simply rebooked him onto a different itinerary at the same price.
Hobica hypothesizes that the airline is pre-bumping the cheap-seat customers to less convenient flights so they can continue to sell higher-priced tickets on the most desirable nonstop routes. And unfortunately, this is highly plausible.
Note that this isn’t the ranting of some crackpot who can’t tell Delta apart from Skybus. The author is a credible travel writer and the founder of the airfarewatchdog.com fare alert site.
And based on the comments of other readers on his site, the case wasn’t isolated. Several readers report the exact same phenomenon. (Several readers miss the point, too, and rant about schedule changes. Frustrating, too, but not the complaint at hand.)
If this ever happens to you, complain. If that doesn’t work, then escalate.
Related:
- Reader mail: The airline changed its schedule, what are my rights?
- Customer service: the nuclear option
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October 26th, 2007 at 7:19 am
I have a feeling that the passenger was automatically rebooked by the system when either (1) the flight number changed or (2) the arrival time changed. He/she should have NO PROBLEM getting back on the nonstop if he/she had actually called Delta rather then running straight to post on the internet about how he/she was screwed.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:44 am
American tried to do this to me last week. I called and complained and the agent tried to blame it on the “computer.” I didn’t buy it and she rebooked me on the non-stop flight.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
This same thing happened to me last spring on AirTran. I had been sent an e-mail notifying me that my non-stop flight had become a one-stop flight, and gave me a link to follow to accept the change. Before calling AirTran to tell them that the change was NOT acceptable, I checked website, and there were the appropriate number of seats on a similar non-stop flight (left 5 minutes later than my original flight, but had a new flight number), but with a much higher fare than what I had originally booked on. When I called AirTran to ask them to rebook me on the non-stop flight, the agent refused saying that there were not enough seat in my class of service. I finally asked for a refund, which they gave me, but I will not fly AirTran again. I definitely got the feeling that they felt they could sell to someone else at a much higher price.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
For me they claimed it was in the contract that it was their right to basically make whatever changes they want. True?
October 28th, 2007 at 8:01 am
The comment below was sent to me via e-mail, with sender’s name withheld by request:
FYI, the part about Ralph Nader is true. From a Scott McCartney column from 2006:
October 28th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Katie, I think what’s happening is that the airlines (American in your case, Delta in the original post, AirTran in Alice’s case…) are twisting a clause in their contract of carriage.
American’s contract includes the following passage:
Delta has a similar clause in their contract:
My emphasis added, in both cases.
I don’t know for certain that this is the passage that the airlines are relying on to justify any changes. But it seems to be the only real passage that relates even remotely to the case at hand.
But there are still two problems:
1) The “schedule” doesn’t refer to a specific ticket, but to the operations of the airline as a whole — to their timetable, and their operations. Those didn’t change; just the one ticket did.
2) Was this change to the tickets a case of “necessity”? I think not. After all, the original flights are still on the schedule.
Bottom line, by my reading, the airlines violated their contracts. Fight for your rights.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I use to work at Delta(ending 2004) and the general policy was generally this[AFAIK still the same]:
If your flight changes and you are rebooked on something you don’t like, you are allowed to be rebooked at no charge(ONE time) or given a refund. This won’t work if you want to move your dates by a week but most EMPOWERED agents are happy to adjust your routing on the same days due to an undesirable rebooking by the system. Sometimes, even if it means overbooking the class of service(but not the plane), there must be available seats on the plane. You might have to escalate or off the bat ask for reissues.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Excellent tips, James. Thanks for sharing!
November 5th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
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November 9th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I had this happen to me with a direct bos to slc flight booked using miles on a sky saver ticket. The nonstop was changed to a jfk change of planes. I ended up changing the ticket all together but this is the second time I’ve had a problem with an award ticket. Last year, I used double miles for a ticket — same route — and the plane was overbooked so there was no seat. That really hurts when it is a 6:30 am flight.
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