What We Need to Do if Your Flight Schedule Get Changed by Airline

My Nephew and his mother travel first time back to Mumbai from Sydney this Sunday on the Malaysian, (MH) Route Syd-KUL-BOM. They were traveling first time on such a long-distance flight with a stop over. They have traveled overseas but those were direct and short flights.

The MH incoming flight landed one hour late and so departed another one hour late and landed late due to bad weather as a result they missed their connecting flight from the KUL-BOM sector. as transit time was about 90 minutes.

At Kula Lumpur, the MH rebook them on another flight to Madras which is in India on MH, and thereafter on a domestic Vistara flight to Mumbai.

The issue is that MH landed in Madras by Midnight and the next flight out of Madras was by late morning around 11 am the next day.

When they request another direct flight MH staff at Kula Lumpur told them that the next available flight to Mumbai will be after 48 hours and so this is the best offer than can do for a long stopover wait they mentioned kindly asking the staff in Madras for assistance.

When they landed in Madras there was no MH staff as Air India handled the flight on their behalf and Airindia has no instruction, so they direct them and other about 55 of them to the domestic airport for an onward flight around midnight.

Normally airports in India operate at midnight so they were allowed to enter the domestic terminal but there was no counter open. In India, once you enter the airport pricint then you cannot leave the airport gate unless you have approval from airline agencies and you need to stay there, due to security reasons, so you cannot leave the airport and decide to go and take a hotel nearby and claim the cost from insurance.

Here comes the catch, the new airline Vistara don't attend their request as they were not their passenger. No MH staff in Madras to attend and to ask for local accommodation option as stopover is for more than 11 hours. Airindia is their handling agent and has nothing to do with MH.

I really felt passengers were misguided, and cheated by various airline agencies and usher them.

Considering that many people will be traveling now and with high demand and quality of service has degraded can someone from the industry guide the forum what they should do next or steps they need to take to ensure that at least accommodation is organized for a long stop over and we can guide others who come across with this kind of situation.

I am not here to file any case against any airline but to understand, who is responsible and what rights we got as consumer so that we can ask these rights from the airline when such a situation arises.

Comments

  • +1

    Did they actually have travel insurance?

  • Yes, they do from India and to get a claim pass in India it takes more than 4 months if the claim is related to medical, and for other travel inconvience, it takes more then 6 months.

  • What We Need to Do if Your Flight Schedule Get Changed by Airline?

    Post on Ozbargain obviously.

  • +1

    Just come here to say there's nothing that you need to do if my/ our flight got rescheduled.

    See the title:

    What We Need to Do if Your Flight Schedule Get Changed by Airline

  • +6

    DO NOT allow 90 mins for connecting flights.

  • These tickets are issued by the airline as single-through tickets.

  • +4

    So there was issues with:
    1) International-based airline that arrived and departed late
    2) Weather
    3) Overseas airport
    4) Overseas domestic airline

    Your options are:
    1) Use travel insurance for any out of pocket costs due to delays/etc. (Check insurance documents for ability to claim)
    2) Speak to Malaysian Airlines after the fact for any compensation
    3) Live and learn for next time to allow longer stopovers

    Not sure what you're looking for from an Australia-based solution, since there really isn't any.

  • +1

    Avoid Malaysian Airlines

    • But in this case its not MH fault, should of bought it as single ticket. 90min for international connecting flight?

      • The op said it was a single ticket.

  • Depends on how the initial ticket was booked : Route Syd-KUL-BOM
    If booked in Aus, then I think they should be covered by Australian consumer rights.

    • What rights? The airline provided the service. They rebooked the passengers to complete the journey.
      Consumer rights doesn't cover the weather or the actual running of the overseas airport and overseas domestic airline.

  • As a traveller when you are dumped by an international airline to a destination country, ( not a destination city) and ask you to take another domestic airline with more than 12 hours time in between. When an airline moves a flight with more then 8 hours' time they are supposed to provide hotel accommodation as well as meals if the time difference is short. Here the airline just drops you with no information or support.

    You will really feel stressed when it happens with someone who is not a frequent traveller or a single woman travelling alone.

    • Where is that written? It's the individual airline's policy, not consumer rights.
      https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-products-and-acti…

      And again, this is what travel insurance is for. Australian consumer rights do NOT cover international airports or international domestic airlines.

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