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A man received an email from Silver Airways changing his flight time, but was surprised to learn his flight took off at the original time.
…when he showed up at the airport in Pensacola to check in for his flight later that day, he got a surprise.
“The flight left. It left early,†said Mellion. “I thought I was really stuck.â€
Stuck because he says airline staff only offered to put him on a flight the following day and pay for his hotel room.
The man didn’t want to wait for the flight the staff offered due to a commitment he wanted to get to. Â So he purchased a walk-up fare from Delta. Â He claims he was sure that he’d eventually get it reimbursed.
A side bar for some advice here–if you can’t solve something in the airport, either through an agent or on the phone, don’t assume you can get a resolution later on. Â At this point, the airline doesn’t owe him anything technically. Â He rejected their offer and chose his own route.
But as far the actual issue in question, I’m not 100% sure what to think.
My assumption is to think that he received the typical “your flight is delayed” email. Â Usually, those state that the flight is delayed, but still tell you to be at the airport at the original time.
In that case, the airline’s response was more than generous.  They rebooked him and they paid for a room overnight.
But I can’t fully assume that after a recent experience I had. Â I booked a flight into a specific airport and received a confirmation with that destination. Â But when I went to check in for my flight, the airport was different and had always been on the airline’s end.
So that causes me to wonder if the airline could be at fault in this case with a weird email send.
Either way, I think their reaction was more than fair. Â What do you think?
I’m 0% surprised at this one. We almost got stranded in Key West (tragic, I know) because they couldn’t find a pilot from RSW.
The airline screwed up with the email, so it was incumbent on them to make it right. If a full day delay was unworkable, they should have paid for alternate transport.
What if it was a route that only had flights every few days. Would you be happy to sit around for days if they paid of your hotel too? We all book flights for a reason, not only to get to a certain destination, but because we have things to do at that select destination. If it somethings within their control, like their email system, they most definitely should get the passenger to their destination ASAP and not be so casual with the attitude of we’ll get you their when we get you there. They expect us as passengers to make their lives easy by being there well in advance of the flight, only bringing bags that fit in the overhead bins, etc. etc., but they have no sense of duty to make sure they are making our journey easy, too.
It’s happened to me before. And yes, I distinctly remember the email stating to arrive at the airport at the original time. Not sure what Silver Airways’ email said, though.
I will say that I DID have a heart attack because I was chilling in a SkyClub waiting for my VERY delayed flight. Took a nap with 45 min alarm BEFORE boarding time. They didn’t make an announcement (I don’t think they typically do anyway, but I figured they MIGHT since they changed the departure time to be earlier again–unusual circumstances), so I ended up having to sprint through the airport to catch my flight that ended up being way way way delayed anyway.
They tell you “stay in the gate area in case things change,” but it was absolutely packed. I figured the SkyClub was the next best place to be? Oh well.
that sucks!