Airlines can often be lenient if there is space on flights, but when the flights are full, it is a completely different matter. For example, in the case of mcmrjm, my first reaction would be that Air France was being too hard, since there is a flight from Toulouse to Paris a least once an hour. But if you fail to use any sector of your ticketed itinerary, it automatically cancels all of the other reservations. Therefore, if the flight to the U.S. was already fully booked -- and probably overbooked -- there was absolutely no way to get the seats back, because other reservations had already jumped into that space automatically.

Hi mc,

>...I felt they might choose to be a little more accommodating.<

Welcome to the real world.

((I))

Here is a sympathy story...and it is easy to make a mistake no matter how organized you are.

I was flying to Rome from SF and I could swear my flight was at 1100am. That morning I was up early, finished packing, dye my hair :), switch out purses, a friend is picking me up at 800, the airport is ten minutes away.

It's ten to seven and I put the tic in my purse and all of a sudden my heart stops and I realize that my flight is at 830!
I jump in the shower, rinse off the tint, it's all over the place including running down my body, doesn't matter, leave it for my poor husband to clean, throw on my clothes from the previous day's work, which are full of hair because I am a hairdresser, jump in my car and get to the airport in just enough time to check in and make the flight, my husband can pick up the car later that day. I have soaking wet hair, I am totally disheveled, no make up, but I did make the flight although I saw everyone looking at me, hoping I wasn't going to be the crazy lady sitting next to them.

Sometimes you just read the info wrong!

Oh, Susanna! I cry for you. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Seriously, that totally sounds like something that would happen to me. I would die with embarrassment over wet hair and no makeup - but it beats missing a flight to Rome. I can't believe you pulled it off!

Hi,

I do feel badly for you. Everyone makes mistakes and this could happen to me, especially when you have it in your head the time of the flight. I do think that businesses in general do not care about you, but I also think that a little empathy goes a long way even if the person cannot change the rules.

Yipper

This situation is one I am hyper vigilant about; I can easily imagine misreading a time so am obsessive about checking, and checking, departure times. The other fear is miscalculating dates for hotel reservations. Very sorry about your missed flight, and it's s good reminder and cautionary tale for all travelers.

I once walked in a Swiss Air office in Zurich intending to change the time of my flight; something happened ( maybe a long line-up), I waked out without doing it , but somehow totally convinced that I did do it

When I arrived at the airport to check in... my name
wasn't on the list. I was absolutely convinced THEY had made a mistake.
Fortunately my original booking was for later in the day - six (slow.....) hours later!

well yes if you just "misread" your departure time and completely missed the plane, you're out of luck. Yes that's how it always works. i don't mean to sound harsh but you need to be there on time, crazy i know. Sorry you learned this the hard way (expensive way)!

This is nothing about Air France, you would have been in the same situation regardless of the carrier. Your title/reminder to peoeple needs to say "Don't miss your flight!" period.

This happened to a friend of mine whose watch had stopped. It was a domestic flight on Alaska Air and she was flying to board a cruise ship. The airline did manage to get her on a later flight, and she (barely) made the cruise. And the airline didn't charge her anything! But maybe that was a different era. (Like 10 years ago?)

A lot depends on how full the flight is. If a flight has a lot of empty seats the airline may be willing to be flexible. But every plane that I have been on in the last year at least (and that's a lot) has been full - every seat taken.

So - when you didn't show up your reservation was cancelled and someone else put in the seat.
And when the airlines are being pushed to the curb in terms of profits - they're just not going to give something (like a free ticket) away.

Your reserved seats went empty. How can you expect the airline to allow you that money. If you had realized earlier and called, they would have had a chance to sell the seats to a stand-by passenger. If they gave the money back to every passenger who missed the flight, they'd go broke.

To our dismay, we once arrived at the airport as our plane taxied out and took off!

The travel agent (yes it was "back in the day" when you had to use an agent and there weren't computers to confirm anything, let alone check-in) had given us an itinerary stating an incorrect departure/boarding time and we were too novice to know to call and confirm with the airlines.

The airlines was very nice and put us on the next flight leaving in a couple of hours and we still were able to make our connecting flight from Denver for our Disneyworld vacation with our 2 and 4 year old. Thank God for little miracles...though it was the absolute worst turbulence flight I've ever been on.

Sorry for your bad luck.

This is probably also a good time to remind all to check their emails for flight changes. Last year every single flight overseas (to Paris, to Italy, to London) were changed within two months of departing. Usually just by a few minutes, but whatever you do, don't ignore any emails from the airline you are flying. I think they're dropping flights and filling others.

One of the things I found annoying about these emails was that they would give the new times (giving all flights and connections), but not specifying the change. So you have to pull your original flight information and read it carefully, looking for difference that might be minor. In the case of the Italy flights, they changed about five times! Since we were taking the family and that meant 5 tickets, it was a bit of a pain.

My friend went to the wrong airport (San Jose versus San Francisco). My brother-in- law flew on the wrong plane years ago. They changed the gate and he was reading and didn't notice, flew to New York instead of Philadelphia (yes, they let him on the plane!). Crazy things happen.
I always have another person check my itinerary and confirm the times/airports with me.

From what I understand, if you're not checked in 1 hour before take off on your international travel (meaning if your passport and bags aren't checked at the ticketing), you can't make the flight even if the plane has not left the gate. The announcements I hear on the plane as it landed in my international travels always said please arrive at the airport 3 hours before departure.

To MelJ's point, last Monday, my boyfriend was traveling Delta domestically for work. On Sunday night, he received two calls from numbers he didn't recognize on his cell phone so he didn't pick them up. Luckily, he listened to the voicemail, which is something he NEVER does. Delta called to tell him that his flight from Long Beach had been canceled and instead he was being put on a flight out of Orange County (closer for us so it was good).

The point is, definitely don't ignore any emails, and I guess answer your phone too when you're about to travel because they might call you. I'm pretty anal when we travel about triple-checking everything, but this was a good lesson about how strange things can happen and you've got to be paying attention.