I say Ms. Roberts should not only ask EU courts for the 660 euros compensation, but the expense she has to incur to deal with all this and any emotional distress she had to live with during that period.

Airlines do these things on everyday basis because they can get away with it. Just yesterday I got another email from Delta saying my aunt’s (age 56) itinerary has changed, for the fourth time in last few months. When I purchased her ticket in April 09, she was supposed to be on a return flight from Tulsa to Atlanta to Mumbai on December 4, 09. Knowing the route and the delays well enough, I had kept over 4 hours of layover in Atlanta for her to make sure she could get on the international connection.

Delta cancelled the direct flight from Atlanta to Mumbai around July 09 after their plans about NorthWest merger came up and re-routed her through Detroit – Amsterdam. Since it wasn’t a huge issue for us except having her to fly from a snow-delays prone airport (DTW) instead of Atlanta in December, we let it slide.

In September 09, they altogether cancelled all their schedules on those flights and left a message on my phone saying she had either Nov 22, 09 or Jan 14, 09 to choose from to make her return flight. She could not have travelled on either of those days due to other pre-purchased plans (for Nov. 22, 09) and visitor’s visa expiration (for Jan 14, 09). I spent 2 hours on phone with Delta, in which I had to speak with 5 unrelenting ‘customer service’ agents to finally find a sensible enough agent who rescheduled her flight to Dec 31, 09.

Then in November 09, Delta changed her flight timings from Tulsa to Atlanta connection to leave only 2 hours of layover in Atlanta for the next flight (leaving for Paris at 6 pm). I called Delta again to have them put her on an earlier flight to Atlanta to make sure any normal (for Delta) delays wouldn’t make her miss her international connection and the agent tried to explain to me that the connection they had given her was a legitimate connection and she could not change it. It took me over an hour to convince her that the itinerary I had originally purchased in April 09 had enough layover in Atlanta for the exact same purpose. The next flight (TUL-1 pm CDT ~ ATL-4 pm EDT) has a bad enough record that my aunt would not be able to make it to her connection at 6 pm and would be stranded in Atlanta for a day or stand-by on other flights. The agent had to speak with her supervisor and finally agreed to change the itinerary to 11 am flight out of Tulsa. Then she had the audacity to tell me that this was a ‘one time favor’ she was doing and any more changes would result in all the necessary fees. Despite her rudeness, I had to ask her if the further changes she referred to were required to be from my side or Delta’s side, just to make sure I was not going to be charged for any changes made by Delta ! :) . So in summary, Delta gets to change the date of the travel, time of the travel, route of the travel and their schedule 4 times per their convinience without any compensation to me or my aunt but I can not request any minor changes in itinerary schedule just to save any further trouble.

I am looking forward to hear from any airline advocates who claim that passengers should always be fair to airlines and forgive them for their errors or mistakes.

I’ve always found it interesting that it pertains to EU airlines anywhere in the world, but lines from other countries only when they fly in/out of the EU. Seems a bit of a disadvantage to the EU lines, but the EU can’t legislate non-EU airlines outside of their territory.

I cannot help but wonder if EU nationals tend to gravitate away from non-EU airlines as a result of this very issue? I cannot also help but wonder if any EU Nationals were treated differently on her flight.

The more interesting trend about this EU legislation has been the advent of Ryanair’s 0.00 fares + taxes and surcharges. Effectively, these are buyer beware fares (as anyting free is bound to be) and have been successfully shown to be not under the enfocement of the EU law. Since taxes (and more importantly any surcharges) do not form the basis of the actual fare- and the fare was effectively gratis- Ryanair is effectively arguing that they are expempt from this legislation.

While it is unlikley we will ever see a Trans-Atlantic fare like this (although with AerFair in the planning, who knows?) it is a point to be aware of when travelling around Europe.

Just remember: when you do decide to come and visit the European Union beware that Low-Cost Airlines here can make Southwest look like business class luxury.