ben
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- Feb 17, 2011
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So a couple months ago I issued a ticket for a family of four, traveling from here to Cape Town with South African Airways (hereinafter SAA).
Because SAA doesn't have direct flights from here, they fly on a feeder flight withTAM LATAM (Aerolineas also works), connecting to SAA to Johannesburg.
So they check in at Aeroparque, and get boarding passes through to Cape Town. So far so good.
They come to the gate in Sao Paulo at boarding time, and learn that they will be denied boarding. Why? Because, they are told, the wife's name on her passport does not match the name on the ticket.
The name on her ticket is Paulina. Her passport gives 2 given names: Paulina and a second name of Biblical origin, let's say Hanna. They are told the names do not match and she cannot fly with this ticket.
There are not words to explain what kind of BS this is. The first name on the passport and on the ticket, match exactly. No airline on earth (to the best of my knowledge) makes an issue of a middle name not being on the ticket. Nor does SAA - here's their policy in writing, which makes plain that middle names are optional.
They call me their agent - me - in a panic. The flight is closing in 20 minutes and they are being excluded from the flight. They are told the only way they can fly is if I issue them a new ticket. Not to mention I can't even touch the ticket because they have already begun to travel.
I try to get on the phone through both normal agency channels and the customer-facing line. Nobody picks up - SAA outsources their customer operations here to a local outfit that handles ticketing and service for a bunch of airlines. It's close to closing time, so nobody bothers.
I call SAA in Johannesburg and get rerouted to a US call center. Middle names are not a problem, but nobody there is going to tell airport staff what to do. "There must be some other reason".
I am told that they denied boarding for the same reason for another 7 people, they're all standing together and nobody knows what to do. I check, and there is no room on the flight whatsoever. My informed guess is that the flight was overbooked, and this was their way of getting rid of people without offering compensation.
They managed to get it sorted out, stay in a hotel at the airline's expense and travel the next day (which reinforces my hunch that it was all about the overbooked flight). Thankfully, they had some margin for error - had they been flying a day later, for a whole bunch of reasons their trip would have been completely pointless.
I'm not yet sure whether to blame SAA as a company, or a renegade employee. (That will depend in large part on SAA's response). As such, I'm not even sure what the moral is, aside from: if the airline wants to screw you, they will. And that at any rate, it's a good idea for the ticket to reflect the exact name on the travel document.
Because SAA doesn't have direct flights from here, they fly on a feeder flight with
So they check in at Aeroparque, and get boarding passes through to Cape Town. So far so good.
They come to the gate in Sao Paulo at boarding time, and learn that they will be denied boarding. Why? Because, they are told, the wife's name on her passport does not match the name on the ticket.
The name on her ticket is Paulina. Her passport gives 2 given names: Paulina and a second name of Biblical origin, let's say Hanna. They are told the names do not match and she cannot fly with this ticket.
There are not words to explain what kind of BS this is. The first name on the passport and on the ticket, match exactly. No airline on earth (to the best of my knowledge) makes an issue of a middle name not being on the ticket. Nor does SAA - here's their policy in writing, which makes plain that middle names are optional.
They call me their agent - me - in a panic. The flight is closing in 20 minutes and they are being excluded from the flight. They are told the only way they can fly is if I issue them a new ticket. Not to mention I can't even touch the ticket because they have already begun to travel.
I try to get on the phone through both normal agency channels and the customer-facing line. Nobody picks up - SAA outsources their customer operations here to a local outfit that handles ticketing and service for a bunch of airlines. It's close to closing time, so nobody bothers.
I call SAA in Johannesburg and get rerouted to a US call center. Middle names are not a problem, but nobody there is going to tell airport staff what to do. "There must be some other reason".
I am told that they denied boarding for the same reason for another 7 people, they're all standing together and nobody knows what to do. I check, and there is no room on the flight whatsoever. My informed guess is that the flight was overbooked, and this was their way of getting rid of people without offering compensation.
They managed to get it sorted out, stay in a hotel at the airline's expense and travel the next day (which reinforces my hunch that it was all about the overbooked flight). Thankfully, they had some margin for error - had they been flying a day later, for a whole bunch of reasons their trip would have been completely pointless.
I'm not yet sure whether to blame SAA as a company, or a renegade employee. (That will depend in large part on SAA's response). As such, I'm not even sure what the moral is, aside from: if the airline wants to screw you, they will. And that at any rate, it's a good idea for the ticket to reflect the exact name on the travel document.
