Fly me to the moon

From time to time I take an airplane to bring me to my holiday destination or to a conference. Usually everything goes smooth an easy, even though transatlantic flights are getting more tiresome lately. However, there seems to be a huge imbalance, when it comes to customer rights.

Last year in June, my wife and I went to Paris for 4 days. On the way back, we missed the plane, because we got stuck in a train to the airport. We arrived at the check-in 27 minutes before the planned departure back to Vienna. 3 minutes too late as it turned out. The check-in staff as well as the employees at the Austrian airlines counter told us, we lost all rights for the transport back home 3 minutes ago. Other customers, who were there 5 minutes before us, did not. Since the plane was over-booked (they sell more tickets than seats in the plane and hope that not everybody takes the flight), these other customers got a hotel room for the night and a boarding pass for the next morning’s plane, while we only got some unfriendly comments about our delay. The plane that we missed had a 30-40 minutes delay, too. My pregnant wife and me, we had to pay for another flight ticket and a hotel room for the night.

Apart from that, Paris was fantastic: Great architecture, romantic places, good food, we really liked our visit. So my sister and I invited my parents to a trip to Paris in May. Since we are careful people, we booked also an insurance at the same travel agency (Opodo Service Packet), in case one of them gets sick. But about 5 month before their departure, the airline canceled the flight. My parents hometown Klagenfurt was removed from the flight schedule, so no proper alternative was available. The airline offered to return the money and cancel my parent’s tickets or provide an alternative flight with an additional stop and 6 hours later arrival. Since my father had another appointment at that time in May, we decided to accept canceling the tickets and booked other tickets for June.
Even though we got back the money for the flight ticket, the travel agency Opodo refused to cancel the insurance, too. So we had to pay an insurance for a canceled flight.

My parents in law currently are visiting us over the Christmas holidays. Their flight left Rio de Janeiro with a 3 hours delay. They could not catch their connecting flight in Frankfurt and finally arrived with four and a half hours delay in Vienna. After queuing up more than an hour for their lost bag, they arrived totally exhausted at our place. And this was not the first time.

Let me summarize what I have learned from my negative experiences with flights:

1. The airline can overbook flights. You don’t have a guaranteed seat in a booked flight.
2. The airline does not have to transport you on the scheduled time or day. Several hours or even an entire day of delay are the customer’s problem.
3. The customer looses all rights (and his money) when he is not in time at the airport, even when the flight is also delayed.
4. When a customer cancels the flights, he usually does not get his money back. He has to make an extra insurance or pay a much higher fare for a partly refund.
5. Travel agencies insist on the payment for an insurance for a canceled flight, even though both, the flight and the insurance were booked via their Internet portal.

In case of point 2 and 5, we could probably successfully sue them, but the amount of money involved in these cases do not justify the risk of the lawsuit. It is time to reconsider the contract between customers and airlines/travel agencies. Currently it is highly unfair, how they treat us.

Staying at home and not making contracts with airlines and travel agencies is no alternative. I love to travel. It is important for my recreation and professional life. But I would appreciate an appropriate legislation for these cases.