For this Ask Cranky, I’m heading to the comments section. That’s right, this comment was posted a couple weeks ago and I thought it was worth bring it to the forefront here. Many know that there are strong European passenger protections, but not many know exactly what they do. So, let’s dig in.

Four of us travelled from Newark to Paris on Open Skies Airlines this month. The flight was delayed from 6.40 p.m. to about 11 p.m. and consequently we missed our next flight from Paris to Edinburgh on Easy Jet and had to purchase new tickets. Open Skies is offering us each $65 vouchers on future flight with them.
Since we do not routinely fly transatlantic, I have told them that there offer is not sufficient for our inconvenience and added expenses. Under the new EU Regulation 261/2004 are we entitled to compensation?

Arlene

First, to answer the immediate question here. No, sorry Arlene, but you aren’t technically entitled to any compensation. You would have had to buy two separate tickets since Open Skies and easyJet wouldn’t have an agreement in place. That can save a lot of money, but it also relieves the other airline from having to give you any compensation due to a missed connection. In addition, EU Regulation 261/2004 (pdf) does not offer compensation for delays. But it does offer a lot, and some of it makes very little sense. So let’s look at it.

This rule applies if you’re bumped, canceled, or delayed. It only applies to passengers departing from a European Union member state or flying to an EU state on an EU-based airline if the originating country doesn’t already have protections in place. It applies to anyone holding a confirmed reservation (including frequent flyer tickets) who arrives at the airport with adequate time and does everything as required to board the flight.

If an airline has an oversold flight and can’t find enough volunteers, it has to involuntarily bump passengers and there are specific compensation rules. That same compensation applies if a flight is simply canceled. In these cases, the passenger is entitled to the following:

There are a couple exceptions here. For example, if another flight can be found that gets the passenger to the destination soon after the original time, then compensation is reduced or eliminated depending on the instance. There is also an interesting little stipulation that says;

An operating carrier shall not be obliged to pay compensation . . . if it can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

This doesn’t apply for simple weather cancellations. In fact, I believe that some are even saying this doesn’t apply to the volcano earlier this year. If that’s the case, then this statement is apparently meaningless.

Now, that compensation amount is just flat compensation regardless of what the passenger decides to do with the flight. If the passenger doesn’t want to travel, he is entitled to a refund. If the passenger can’t get another flight for awhile, he’s entitled to food and hotel as appropriate. That last piece also applies to delays.

The delay rule itself says that passengers are entitled to food, hotel, etc regardless of the reason for delay if the delay is anywhere from 2 to 4 hours using the same distance breakdown as shown in the compensation table above. If the delay passes five hours, then the customer can walk away and get a full refund.

And that’s the gist of the rule. My only problem is that these things apply to flights even if the problems are outside the airline’s control. It makes little sense to me that if a flight is canceled because there’s a storm over the airport, that airlines should have to shell out hundreds of euros. That’s the sort of incentive that encourages airlines to fly unsafely. But this is the rule, so now you now what applies to your flights.

Here’s an Ask Cranky question from a time long ago. Bereavement fares. Everyone knows about them, but are they any good?

I’d love to see you do a post on how bereavement fares have evolved (or not evolved) over the year. Back when I was skinny and had hair, and there were really only four classes of fares: F, FN, Y and YN, the bereavement fares gave a pretty dependable discount on the Y and YN fares. Now, with fares being an absolute alphabet soup, how to the majors and LCCs handle bereavement fares? I know when I did a short stint as an Alaska Airlines res clerk, I could usually beat the heck out of the bereavement fare – but that too, was a long time ago.

Frank V

There’s no question that times have changed. Back in the day, bereavement fares provided a tangible discount over the prevailing rate. The reason for this was simply compassion. People didn’t ever want to take those trips, but they had to and the airlines did what they could to make it a little easier.

As the industry’s fare structure changed and low cost carriers brought lower last minute fares, bereavement fares started to become irrelevant. Oh, they still gave a discount off the full fare. It’s just that nobody paid the full fare anymore.

For low cost carriers, bereavement fares don’t exist for the most part. Southwest, for example, doesn’t offer bereavement fares. Other airlines have varying policies.

American – The website offers a very terse suggestion that bereavement fares may be offered and you need to call them for info. They tend to use an older school approach with flat rates that are very flexible. It tends not to be very helpful.

Continental – They realized that the old model wasn’t helping anyone, so they switched to something new. Now, tickets up to $500 get a 5% discount, tickets between $500 and $1000 get a 10% discount, and tickets over $1000 get a 20% discount.

Delta – They offer a lot more information on bereavement fares on their website but it’s the same end result as American.

United – Like Continental, United has gone with a discount structure, but they’ve opted for simplicity. You can get 10% off any ticket.

As you can see, some of these are good and some bad, but they’re all a pain in the butt. You’re only allowed to take advantage of this for close family members, and each airline has a list of what that includes. You need to provide documentation as well. If someone is sick, you need to give medical contact information so the airline can confirm that this is real. In case of death, you’ll often be asked for the death certificate. It’s not a fun experience. In fact, it’s unpleasant enough to have been a subject of a Seinfeld episode.

But the fares are still out there. They’re just not easy to take advantage of.

I’ve got a nice big backlog of Ask Cranky posts, and I thought this would be a good time to starting clearing that out. Today, we’re talking consolidators.

Can you do a piece on consolidators/consolidator fares? It’s probably the largest aspect of the industry that I’m in the dark about. I’d like to see something with a bit of depth. How do they work? Why do they even exist? At the basic level, I understand that they buy blocks of tickets at a discount. But why can’t the airline just sell them through their own systems with whatever restrictions they want? Are all online agencies consolidators? If not, how can you tell? When are they just fronts for the same thing you can buy directly from the airline? Are there any real differences between Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Cheapoair, and others that I’ve forgotten?

Dan L

Ah yes, consolidators. It’s sort of the mystery of the travel world for many people. They have this reputation as being amazing sources of cheap fares, but how can you find them? Are they reliable? What’s the catch? Let’s get started.

For you as a traveler, when you hear about consolidators, bucket shops, and wholesalers, it means the same thing. Discounted airfare. You’ll have the best luck finding these on international routes, in particular in premium cabins, and you can save a lot of money.

For example, we had a Cranky Concierge client who recently needed to fly from Chicago to Hong Kong in business class. American was showing an option on its website for $9,000 roundtrip. We found those same flights on Webjet.com for a mere $3,500 roundtrip. Yeah, big difference.

There are a couple things to keep in mind about these fares. Yes, you can save a ton but there are nearly always additional restrictions. The change fee on this, for example, is $400 plus a $50 Webjet fee, so it’s not entirely flexible. Any changes are required to go through the agency and not the airline, so that can cause issues while you’re traveling. Often you won’t be able to earn miles on cheap seats like these either.

In this particular case, the deal appears to be that Webjet isn’t even allowed to show the airline name. It simply says “Major Airline.” Of course, it’s easy to figure out since it shows flight numbers and flight times. Not hard to put two and two together.

Often the biggest question about something like this is . . . why? The idea is that airlines can find non-traditional outlets to help sell seats that they wouldn’t have sold otherwise. Go to your nearest Chinatown and you’ll find great deals on flights to China at bucket shops around the area. That’s the best way to reach a large audience that can help fill your airplanes. In many places, this is the way they book travel every time.

With the web, things have become more complicated. Cheap fares are offered to the world as soon as they go online, so you would think that this practice would disappear. But it still continues, likely as a legacy of the past. There are good deals to be found, for sure.

But how do you know if these guys are reputable? It’s a lot easier now in the world of e-tickets. Pay with a credit card and as soon as it’s booked, go directly to the airline to check on your reservation. If all looks good, then you’re set. If not, then you can immediately dispute it with your card.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you aren’t necessarily dealing with a consolidator directly. Consolidators will often sell to travel agents, so you can buy fares through retail agents who get the fares through consolidators and you’ll never know the name.

Some places only sell consolidator fares. If you go to Airfare.com, for example, you’ll see that there are very few options given. That’s because published fares aren’t shown. Others just mingle the fares shown, as you’ll see on a site like Travelocity or Expedia. You wouldn’t know if it was a consolidator fare or not at first blush.

I’ve had good luck with Airfare.com, Webjet.com, Cheapoair, and others in the past. You can also go to a travel agent to do the legwork for you, or to Cranky Concierge, of course. In the end, it’s worth checking out because it can save you a lot.

Hi kids. It’s time for another episode of “Ask Cranky.” Hooray! This time, the question comes from Florida, or as a friend of mine calls it, “America’s wang.” It’s a great question.

Last week, I finally got the chance to try out Melbourne’s much-acclaimed addition of US Airways. We were caught in the nasty weather up in New York which severely delayed our flight home, but somehow managed to pull up to a gate in Charlotte at 9:53, hopeful of making our 10:09 connection to Melbourne. We tore through the airport and arrived at 10:03, only to find the boarding door closed and our plane pushing back (The only flight to leave even close to on-time during our entire trip…).

My question is about this practice of leaving early when connecting passengers are in the terminal. They had to know our flight had landed — why not hold the plane until at least the scheduled departure time? I know the days of holding a flight for additional passengers are long gone, but surely just waiting until the scheduled departure time is an option?

(As usual, the airline refused reimbursement for our hotel expenses because our original delay was weather-related. Although I’d argue the real reason for our stranding was the early departure of our connecting flight.)

Ryan A – Melbourne, Florida

This is without question one of the most frustrating things that can happen to a traveler. For an airline, it becomes an operations call on how to handle the situation, and unfortunately, it sounds like you got on the wrong side of this one.

The bad news is that they don’t technically owe you anything, because the rules specifically state that you have to be at the gate 15 minutes prior to departure, even if it’s their fault that you weren’t there.

So why would they have left early? There are a couple of reasons that come to mind, one more likely than others.

The more likely scenario is that they had a ton of people trying to get on that flight from earlier delays or cancellations. As soon as that 15 minute mark hit, they were free to cancel confirmed seats and put other people onboard. Sucks for you, great for them.

The less likely but still quite possible scenario is that there could have been extenuating circumstances. Maybe the weather was rolling in and they had to get out early to beat it. Maybe the pilots were dangerously close to timing out on their duty day so they wanted to get on their way.

If neither of those were the case, then they probably would have looked at your arrival time and held the plane for just a couple minutes. After all, that plane was spending the night in Melbourne, so being a couple of minutes late wouldn’t have impacted any other connections.

The discussion about how safe regionals are has been top of mind since the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo last year. A recent Frontline report on regional pilot safety has fanned the flames, and we’ve even had a discussion about this in the comments over the last few days. I’ve received a lot of questions in different forms, but I thought I’d post this particular question as an Ask Cranky since it’s a slightly different take on things. I’m hoping that you pilots out there will hit the comments with your take.

As a loyal American Airlines flyer, I cannot think of another mainline airline whose parent company wholly owns the regional carrier, American Eagle . . . right? Am I correct with this, AMR wholly owns both? My assumption would be if the same folks own AA as American Eagle, surely they are going to act more responsibly in terms of caring for their pilots and keeping the brand comparable in terms of safety regulations? I was curious as to your thoughts on this . . . even United contracts out it’s regional flying.
L. Feldman, California

It’s a good question indeed, and it may be one that many people haven’t even thought about. This awful Colgan crash, congressional hearings, and the special on PBS have really convinced some people that regional flying is incredibly dangerous thanks to inexperienced pilots. So is your life potentially safer on a wholly-owned subsidiary airline as opposed to a contract regional? First, let’s dispel the notion that regional flying in general is unsafe.

Some like to point out that the accidents in the US since the end of 2001 have all been on regionals, but it’s important to note that there still haven’t been that many accidents. Let’s look at every commercial accident in the US since 2002 where someone on board was killed.

2/12/2009 – Colgan Air Q400 in Buffalo
8/27/2006 – Comair CRJ in Lexington
12/19/2005 – Chalk’s Grumman in Miami
10/19/2004 – Corporate Airlines Jetstream 32 in Kirksville, MO
1/8/2003 – Air Midwest Beech 1900 in Charlotte

The Chalk’s one and the Air Midwest (former Mesa subsidiary) one were due to maintenance issues, so of the thousands and thousands of regional flights that have operated in some of the worst weather imaginable during the last 8+ years, there have been three fatal accidents during scheduled service due to pilot error. Is that something we should be content with? Certainly not, but I think it’s important to put this in context. These TV specials always make it sound like you’re likely to die on your next flight.

Yes, regional pilots get paid less (sometimes a shockingly low amount), and they have less experience than their big jet counterparts, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t get you there safely. In fact, those pilots have gotten their passengers to their destination safely all but three times in the last 8 years.

Now, to the question about wholly-owned regional subsidiaries . . . I don’t think that makes a difference. US Airways, by the way, owns a couple of its regional subsidiaries while outsourcing the rest, so American isn’t the only one. Also, while American Eagle is wholly-owned, but there is also American Connection which is outsourced. Now, Colgan was the focus of this program because of their recent accident and other issues they’ve had, but that’s somehow been blown up into the entire regional airline world being unsafe.

Sure, Colgan has some serious issues they need to work out, but every other airline has its share of troubles along the way. Right now, in fact, it’s wholly-owned American Eagle that is on the hot seat. They’ve been hit with two major fines related to how they maintain their airplanes.

So for me, it’s not whether an airline is wholly-owned by its major carrier or not that matters. We simply have to put our faith in the feds and hope they’re regulating the industry properly. That’s a story for another day. In fact, tomorrow, I’ll talk about misguided attempts to change pilot commuting rules.