Dear Alex,
My husband and I were flying home to Hong Kong from Paris Charles de Gaulle last October after a business trip to Europe. We were booked economy class with Air France on flight 188, which leaves at 2315.
As we had only hand luggage, we entered the terminal at 2200. We thought this would allow sufficient time, but as we approached the check-in counter we saw a lot of people waiting on the left. It turned out they were on stand-by because, although we didn’t know it at the time, our flight was overbooked.
At the counter, the agent told us there was only one seat left because the flight was full. This news threw us. We pressed for an upgrade because we were rushing back for a meeting and couldn’t afford to wait for Air France’s next flight in 14 hours’ time.
The agent discussed the matter with the other counter staff and started to search for a spare seat. All of a sudden, another member of staff appeared and told us to make up our mind as the flight was about to close. A third staff member then advised us that, instead of arguing our case, we should secure a seat on the following day’s lunchtime flight while there was still availability. The next thing we knew, we had missed the check-in deadline by a couple of minutes.
What is unfair is that not only did we miss our original flight and our meeting, but Air France charged us €300 to rebook our tickets and we had to find a further €80 for a hotel room until the following day’s flight.
When I returned home I took up the matter with Air France, but the airline has not taken our complaint seriously. It says we were at fault because the flight closes one hour before departure and we were too late. Is Air France being unreasonable?
Alice Siu, Hong Kong
Alex replies:
We’ll never get to the bottom of what really happened amid all the heated exchanges. Neither did it help matters that you were taking flight AF188. This is one of the last Air France flights of the day, so there are no later services to fall back on should there be a problem. Moreover, Air France ground staff are only human so I suspect they were tired and irritable by the end of another stressful shift.
I am afraid you compounded the issue by checking in too close to the deadline and asking for an upgrade. Europe’s big hubs, such as Paris CDG, can be confusing, even intimidating places, so it’s recommended an economy class passenger taking a long-haul flight reports at least two hours before departure. This advice would have been displayed on your itinerary or advised by the airline or travel agent at the time of booking.
Rather than waste precious time insisting you be upgraded, it would have been better to have kept a clear head and been aware of your passenger rights. It may be the done thing to ask for an upgrade in parts of the world where passengers have no rights, but in the EU passengers will automatically be compensated should their flight be overbooked, so the big national carriers seldom offer upgrades to people travelling economy class.
By law, airlines must display a copy of EU passenger rights at their counters. I imagine you didn’t notice it with all the confusion. It means you would qualify for the maximum payout of €600 plus overnight accommodation, meals and so on because of the distance of your flight and the length of delay you were about to incur.
So one of you, perhaps yourself, could have made the flight while your husband could have remained behind, received the compensation and taken the next day’s flight.
Alternatively, Air France is a reputable airline and I am sure it would have agreed for both of you to travel together the following day – one of those stand-by passengers would have been glad of your seat – with compensation paid to one of you.
The key point here is that passengers have no rights if they fail to meet airline requirements. Anyone missing the check-in deadline disqualifies themselves from receiving compensation.
It may seem tough, but I suggest you put this episode down to experience. Next time you fly long-haul from a busy airport, allow much more time to complete the check-in process.
