travelgourmet

<i>I think the risk is different here</i>

Like I said, whether you do it or not depends upon how risk averse you are. All I'm saying is that people should assess their risk tolerance, the probability that something will go wrong, and the cost if everything goes to pot. Then calculate an expected value of the possible delay and decide whether it is worth it. I think that if one does this honestly, that separate tickets can make a lot of sense in certain situations.

Just trying to offer a counterpoint to the &quot;just say no to separate tickets&quot; school. Sure, you may get burned, but you may save a lot of money. Everybody has to weigh that for themselves.

dawnnoelm

Travel - I totally get your point - and say when dd and I go to Europe next spring? I would have no issues with doing seperate tickets as the timeline is more lax - 2 people is easier to book then 6...

Having said that - it is important to KNOW how to do the seperate bookings. As I shared, when dh and I were bumped from our flight to the Bahamas and then I booked our own flight out -- and then our flight was canceled home from the bahamas - well - I did not know that would happen. Had zero idea actually...

Sue_xx_yy

Someone please shoot me. I can't believe how involved I have gotten with this thread. I put it down to the phase of the moon.

*****

&quot;As I see it, the likelihood of actually missing a 4 hour connection is pretty slim, IMHO, maybe 5%. &quot;

Travelgourmet, I'm guessing that even six months ago, the insurers of Bear Stearns considered the odds of that firm going under to be considerably less than 5 per cent. .

I realize we are not talking mega-millions of dollars at stake. But my point is that risk analysis can be an extremely difficult game, even for entities like investment firms and for that matter, airlines, that are hugely invested in getting it right. They often fail at it (TWA, Pan Am, Canadian, Braniff, any number of 'charter' airlines, and, from the sound of it, the hapless Alitalia have all gone or are going bankrupt.) All this, despite having teams of business analysts and statisticians at their disposal that are not available to the average person.

Look, I see your general point, and indeed I have booked separate tickets myself, on much the same reasoning. But I have always booked the two flights waay more than 4 hours apart (more like 20 hours or so apart), both based on personal experience, and on a qualitative but fairly thorough analysis.

First, the average arrival time of an incoming flight includes data on early arrivals as well as late arrivals. Thus, when a flight does arrive late, it will almost invariably be later than what the average statistic suggests.

Second, the situations that cause late arrival times are numerous and generally independent, one of the other. It makes no sense to say the risk is only 5 per cent - because this begs the question, a 5 per cent risk of what event? There are so many possibilities: 1) air traffic control events 2) weather related events (that can vary hugely over the seasons and over different geographic areas 3) labour events (possibly involving several different unions in several different countries) 4) airport security events, real or perceived 5) numerous combinations and permutations of the above. This pretty well guarantees that while the average arrival time of a flight might be x, the variance in arrival time could be quite large, such that the 95 per cent confidence interval spans a range of arrival times well over four hours less check-in time.

Not only that, but most travel insurance policies will NOT cover the situation described, notwithstanding what the article implies.

Here is how a popular firm (Travelguard) outlines this so-called 'covered risk':

&quot;You miss your connection due to a schedule change.&quot;

The definition of 'schedule change'? &quot;The later or earlier departure of a scheduled flight, which causes you to miss your scheduled connecting flight.&quot;

I am almost certain they mean what the ***airline(s)*** have 'scheduled' by way of a connecting flight: I don't think they mean what an ***individual traveler*** manages to 'schedule' for themselves through the clever conjunction of two separate itineraries, each with its own scheduled ****destination***, but with no point in common between them that is formally recognized, i.e. scheduled, by the airlines involved.

travelgourmet

<i>But my point is that risk analysis can be an extremely difficult game...</i>

It might be difficult, but we live in a probabilistic world. I'm not sure how one makes any sort of financial decision without, at least subconsciously, making the same sort of calculations.

For example, I bought a macbook this weekend. As always, the salesman starts to pitch the extended warranty. I had to decide whether to get it. So, I had to factor in the cost of the laptop, the warranty, the expected useful life, the probability of something breaking, etc, etc. To not think in those terms means that you risk throwing money away. BTW, I didn't get the warranty.

<i>Second, the situations that cause late arrival times are numerous and generally independent, one of the other. It makes no sense to say the risk is only 5 per cent - because this begs the question, a 5 per cent risk of what event?</i>

Well, independence is part and parcel of probability. And, I think it easy enough to calculate your risk. One can calculate not just the average arrival time, but also the distribution of those arrival times. This is why you see both the on-time rating as well as the average delay information. Between the two, you can get a decent idea of your risk. If you wanted, you could go the nerd route and track the actual information and map it out - the data is out there - but I don't think that is that necessary. I'm not sure how else you propose to measure your risk.

Of course, you still have to determine whether the risk is acceptable to you, but this doesn't change the way one should think about the equation. I'm not saying that everyone should do it, but I also think that there is a tendency to dismiss the idea out of hand, without really thinking through the problem.

dawnnoelm

Well - In my situation I spoke with dh last night and he would rather take the risk of booking a flight to Paris that night...(from LHR)

helen_belsize

If you want to travel on Christmas Eve, book as early as possible. Lots of French people live and work in London and so apart from holidaymakers and second home owners the French workers are all trying to travel to Paris close to Christmas and other holidays like Easter.

This applies to planes and trains. A similar example would be travel from London to Ireland for the two weeks around Christmas when it is only offered at full fares and is fully booked.

A good cheap option is the early morning Eurostar departures from St Pancras, in which case stay near St Pancras. There is a superior Youth Hostel almost opposite the station.

111op

I'm coming to this a bit late. I noticed this thread because yk linked it to a different thread.

Well of course this is old news to the Fodor's regulars, but I think that people may tend to forget that there are many people who don't travel so often. They are not going to realize that missing a connection can be so bad.

And personally I think that airlines have become much stricter also. I've missed a few flights myself in the old days, and I'm sure that if that happens now, I'd have to pay a large fee.

Actually that happened to me once. It wasn't a connection. I was flynig from Paris to Berlin and I showed up too late and had to buy a brand new ticket.

But I've had other occasions when I was just put on the next flight (for free). For example, I had one experience when I was flying from SFO to NYC and I was so tired that I slept at the gate and missed my boarding call. Then I spent the night at the airport and took the next flight out.

Whether this story should make one's blood boil -- well, that's subjective. But I think that it's sad that airlines are cutting so many corners these days. Granted, AA did try to help, according to the article. But I'm thinking that if this happened 10 years ago, the outcome would have been very different.

It's a cautionary tale, but I think it's also a really sad tale of what air travel has come to.

111op

I guess this was implicit in my earlier post -- but just to make it more explicit -- I'm sympathetic.

I don't get the impression that they knew the consequences and just gambled.

Most likely they are not terribly experienced. Otherwise, they'd have known that their return would be canceled as well. Surely they would think more about the consequences.

That's why I think that this is a sad tale. But it's actually the same story everywhere. Companies find every way they can to squeeze $ out of you. You don't know the rules? Tough luck for you!

For example -- health insurance. Your medical bills. What's covered? What's not covered? Etc. It's the same story over and over. There's some technicality that some procedure can't be covered, or whatever.

But is this really the way things should be? I mean, you can't expect someone who takes vacations once in a while (and joins group tours!) to know all the rules. But of course, airlines can't provide free air travel either.

There's got to be a middle ground somewhere, I think. And as I said, it's sad.

yk

&lt;&lt; But is this really the way things should be? &gt;&gt;

Yes, since this is the only way for the airlines to survive at this climate.

$753 r/t JFK to Rome, during X'mas and New Years.

If we want all airline tickets to be refundable or changable, the current prices will need to go up by at least 100%.

Would you be willing to pay for that?

I'm happy with paying $763 for a restricted fare, and let others who don't know the rules pay all the penalty fees.

111op

I think you're missing my point, yk.

There are special cases that require some flexibility.

I mean airlines are not exactly forthcoming. I'm sure you've had the experience that they tell you a flight is delayed for reason A, then it's reason B, and then it's reason C -- all of which give a longer and longer delay. And the reason for the obfuscation is so that you can't find them responsibile.

And I still can't believe that AA could call me to tell me that a flight was delayed for a few hours and when I showed up, told me that no, the flight was already all booked and I couldn't be checked in.

They ended up upgrading me, but it left a really sour taste in my mouth. I felt that it was a trick to get me to show up late so that they could eliminate some passengers because the flight was overbooked in the first place.

But why should I be penalized this way? I was about to leave the apartment, and if I had left, I'd have shown up at the airport within the checkin deadline. Granted, they boarded me, but why should this be an issue in the first place?

Obviously something is broken about the system and that needs to be fixed. Lying about your flight delays, making your passengers pay for meals, making them pay for an extra bag and refusing to compensate your passengers adequately is not going to fix fundamental problems with the system.

yk

well, your case was very different. I know AA screwed you up big time, though that was a rather unusual situation. At least I haven't heard or read any other similar situations.

But the issue we've been discussing here is something that happens everyday - people missing connections. It can happen because of many reasons-
They book themselves too short of connecting time
Weather delays
Mechanical problems
Airport congestion/ATC problems

If the couple (in the article) had booked a single ticket, or if they had booked a refundable ticket, they wouldn't have to pay any extra $.

One cannot expect the over-worked, underpaid gate agents to assess every pax on a case-to-case basis. They are told to follow the airline rules - not to bend them.

I agree this is not a good system, but we all either have to deal with it, or expect to pay a whole lot more for air travel.

And I don't agree with you saying the airline are not forthcoming - perhaps they're not forthcoming when it comes to delays. But in this case, the main issue is the couple did not understand the terms and conditions of the discounted ticket they had purchased, which was always spelled out in detail prior to completing the purchase.

111op

Well, but I think you'll agree with me that in general airline agents are not trained to be forthcoming. More or less you have to know what you want to get information out of them. I mean, in addition to what I wrote, let me add the whole charade with frequent-flyer tickets and upgrades.

And how many people actually read the fine print?

In this case, I wonder why Alitalia didn't make more of an effort to reinstate their return seats. I mean, if you want to argue, you could say that ok, they missed their flights, so fine, make them pay for the outbound. Alitalia couldn't resell the seats in time.

But then, one is left wondering -- surely not all flights are completely full. AA was willing to fly the couple. So why couldn't Alitalia put the couple on another flight. It'd be a nice gesture. Instead we got a story like this to read instead.

And though the ticket is non-refundable, why should Alitalia have canceled the return? I know that's policy, but couldn't that be changed depending on circumstances? And why didn't Alitalia think of telling the couple that the return would be cancelled and they should consider buying a new r/t ticket?

I see your point that the agents don't have time to deal with every special case, but in this case, I don't see how the reinstating the return seats could hurt the airline. They sold the seats already. If everything had gone well, the couple would have gotten on the plane. Is it fair to cancel the return so that the airline could make more $ out of the couple's misfortunes?

Of course there's a set of rules. The airlines followed the rules in this case. But as I said, what I find sad is how inflexible the airlines are and how much air travel has degenerated.

So we end up with the story in this article. But if the airline could have been accommodating we could have ended up with a nice story. Between the two extremes surely there's a middle?

yk

The answer to your questions is:

ALITALIA

Anyway, from reading the article, it seems like the Alitalia counter had already closed by the time they arrived, and no one was able to help them at the airport from Alitalia. Assuming Alitalia only flies once a day, even if Alitalia offered to put them on the next flight, the couple would have missed their tour group.

I assume the couple was so concerned about getting themselves to Rome that they didn't notify Alitalia (by phone) about them missing the flight. If they had notified Alitalia about it while they were still at JFK, (w/i a few hours of their missed flight), they may have been able to keep the return seats.

From Alitalia's standpoint - all they know is this couple never checked-in for their flight. I don't think it is reasonable to expect Alitalia to call up every single pax who didn't show up for his/her flight to inform the pax that the return flight would be cancelled.

Another lesson learned from this story is NEVER book 2 separate tickets to go somewhere IF you have an important appointment that you cannot afford to miss. In this case, it was the tour group. If the couple didn't have to rush to Rome, chances are they could have taken the next day's flight (w/o charge) to get to Rome.

111op

The article doesn't say when they discovered the return was canceled -- just that they found out when they arrived in Italy.

So unless the return flight was completely booked, how difficult was it for Alitalia to reinstate their seats? Of course what Alitalia did was within the rules, but it was not flexible, as I mentioned. I mean, unless the flight was full, Alitalia was really screwing this couple over by making them pay for another one-way ticket.

AAFrequentFlyer

Airline 1 sells you a ticket from A to B. That's the end of their contract with you.

At the same time, we all have to realize that transportation business is not a perfect science, in fact, it's far from it. Weather, ATC, mechanical, crew problems, etc happens. EVERY airline that I know does not guarantee schedule. They do state in their CoC that they will try their best to get you to your destination within reasonable time. Sometimes it's impossible, as in a major snow storm and the airport(s) shut down for hours at a time. At the end they will get you from A to B, but they don't care if you had other plans. If they did, then imagine the compensation needed for a father missing his daugthers wedding or a businessperson missing a sales pitch for contract worth million$. It's just not reasonable.

Now comes airline 2. You contracted with them to get you from B to C. Once again, that's all they are required to do. You didn't show up, you lose.

If you really need to go from A to C, buy 1 ticket. At the very least you will get to C no matter what.

To top that, if you need to be in C at a specific time, give yourself an extra day.

Once again - transportation business IS NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE!

NeoPatrick

I'm with the others on this -- sad lesson learned, but nothing surprising happened here. And I can't imagine why it should make my &quot;blood boil&quot;.

nytraveler

I don;t get why people don;t understand that an airline ticket is a contract. When you buy it you are aceepting certain terms - just as if you're buying a car or a house.

If the passenger chooses not to read or understand the rules - then the passenger is responsible if - through no fault of the airline - they wind up in a difficult situation.

It's unfortunate that this couple was very naive and planned badly. But it isn't the fault of either airline. They owe the passengers only what is contracted for in the ticket.

I don;t get people who think the airline should then change all of their rules - at cost to themselves - to solve a problem caused by the passengers. (This is like putting a down payment on a house, changing your mind and then expecting the money back. You signed a contract - and the seller gets to keep the down payment if you choose not to complete the contract.)

These are business contracts - not arrangements between friends - and you are owed as much - exactly - as it says on the ticket. Expecting more is simply unrealistic.

In this case the couple planned badly on a couple of fronts:

Buying tickets on unrelated airlines
Not leaving a realistic time to transfer
Not looking into their options when the problem did occur
Not notifying Alitalia why they missed the flight and that they wanted to continue their trip
Planning to meet a tour (rather than take the tour's air arrangements) and leaving no window for delays

How is all this Alitalia's (which I admit is a ghastly airline) fault?

111op

Well, I guess the issue is &quot;at cost to themselves.&quot;

As I mentioned, in what way is Alitalia losing money if it reinstates the two seats on the return if the flight isn't full anyway?

Maybe you could argue that the computer wouldn't allow it, but surely there must be a manual override option?

What's to be gained from this kind of inflexibility, I wonder? Is that a way to build trust and loyalty among your passengers? Oops -- I forgot -- such considerations are no longer relevant!

NeoPatrick

I still remember when we were flying to Asia and had a flight from Dallas to LAX on AA (after connecting at DFW from Florida). Our flight was delayed in Dallas for 4 or 5 hours. Dozens of people on the plane were nearly hysterical -- it seemed everyone was connecting to some distant location -- either Asia or Australia, in particular. Doubtless they all missed their flights. We sat there rather smug, because we had booked a night near LAX and weren't flying out until the next evening -- for this very reason.

travelme

Patrick said &quot;We sat there rather smug, because we had booked a night near LAX and weren't flying out until the next evening -- for this very reason. &quot; Now now Patrick, that isn't very nice! Just kidding. Well done actually. We went to Tahiti twice with connections in LA and stayed the night both times. I cant imagine doing anything else.