Another Sad Consequence of an Aircraft Delay

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fountainhall

Another Sad Consequence of an Aircraft Delay

Post by fountainhall »

There is a new thread on another forum which illustrates a problem I think most of us will have experienced at least once. The poster flew to Bangkok on Etihad with a routing from Dublin to Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi to Bangkok. The first sector was actually on an affiliate airline, Aer Lingus. It was 40 minutes late arriving in Frankfurt. Aer Lingus had notified Etihad and a representative was at the airport to help him and a few others to get to their connecting flight. Only this person was useless.

It appears he was led to Immigration. Why, I have no idea because an international transfer should not require Immigration processing. Perhaps it might have been a Security check. The end result was that even though the Abu Dhabi flight had closed, the doors were still open. He was told very firmly he could not board. End result was he did not have access to his suitcase which spent the night on a carousel whilst he was in a hotel. The next morning he was transferred to a non-stop TG flight.

I can fully understand his anger. Although I have had so many delays I cannot recall most, I have only once missed a connection and had to spend the night at an airport hotel. Unfortunately I had purchased two separate budget tickets and the original airline therefore had no obligation to pay my costs. Fortunately my travel insurance policy did! Now, if you purchase a through ticket issued by just one airline, in Europe I believe in most cases that means the airline has to pay compensation and overnight costs.

On my last trip back from the UK I was on Qatar with a 70-minute interline connection in Doha. I have had quick connections at Doha before with no problem. On this occasion the original incoming aircraft had to be replaced due to technical issues. Consequently there was a three-hour take-off delay and, understandably, a missed connection. Having arrived at 2:00 am I then had to hang around for the next Bangkok flight at 8:00 am. Not pleasant.

I have now decided that I will only accept tight connections at Helsinki. Finnair permits a 40-minute minimum connecting time. Not only is it a compact airport, I have known the airline to hold departures for 15 – 30 minutes to ensure delayed connecting passengers can join. For other airlines, 2 hours is now my minimum.

Sadly delays cannot be predicted. Air travel continues to increase. Security queues are longer. In many parts of the world air traffic control systems are often under huge pressure with aircraft having to be ready for specific departure slots or face a delay of what could be well over an hour. Many airlines like the Gulf carriers operate a hub and spoke system. One delayed incoming aircraft can then affect a host of on-going flights.

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