The Cayman Airways Web site is a slick, gorgeous online brochure for one of the world’s best diving destinations. There’s information about everything from snorkeling in Stingray City to attending the island’s famous Pirates Week. But if you want to know what your rights are on a Cayman Airways flight, you’re out of luck.
The carrier doesn’t publish a contract of carriage — the legal agreement between you and the airline — on its site. I can’t remember the last time I ran across an airline that didn’t disclose its contract on the Web.
Reader Janet Iadanza tipped me off to this omission:
I have a flight booked on Cayman Airways (with non-refundable tickets). They have changed the flight time twice (first from 11 a.m. to 10 a.m., now from 10 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.). I was planning on traveling with my elderly mother, and 8:30 is simply too early for her. Legally, what are my options? I read somewhere that if the the airline changes a departure time by a certain number of hours, I am entitled to a full refund. Is this accurate? Thank you in advance.
The answer is: yes, usually you’re entitled to a full refund when an airline changes its schedule. But some airlines don’t allow you to invoke the refund rule when it’s a minor change (say, less than two hours). So my advice to her would have been to check the contract.
But there is no contract. Under federal law, Cayman Airways must provide you with a copy of its contract at one of its ticket counters. But who has time to drive to the airport to find out if you can get a refund?
Needless to say, Cayman Airways should post its contract to its site immediately.
But this missing document raises a more troubling question: What could an airline possibly gain by withholding this information?
I don’t mean to single out Cayman Airways. Other, bigger airlines make it almost impossible to find their contracts online. They either bury them on their sites or make them difficult to access by encoding them as .PDF files.
Why conceal your term and conditions?
Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

Elliott is consumer advocate
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