Yahoo Finance Blame game over ‘codeshare’, as my Mother’s Day treat fails to take off
I booked two airline tickets with Directline Flights to give my 84-year-old mother a Mother’s Day treat in Rome. The information stated that our flight was with Iberia and that it “offered a traditional airport check-in service”.
We reached Gatwick an hour and 20 minutes before departure after some delays on the way. The Iberia check-in desk was crowded and only staffed by one person. After a long wait in a queue, I was told that we had to go to the Vueling check-in because the flight was a “codeshare”. When we got there, we were told it had just closed and I would have to buy tickets for a later flight. I did so, losing £255 and half a day of our three-day stay. Directline Flights has refused to admit it gave the wrong information. CW, London
“Codeshare” flights are a business agreement whereby one airline can market and sell tickets under its brand for a flight operated by another carrier. It’s crucial, therefore, that passengers are told which airline is operating the flight and where they should check in.
The question is, who is to blame? Directline, in its response to you, says such information was the responsibility of Jetset, a trade-only tour operator which supplies content for Directline’s booking platform, and it blames Gatwick for not displaying flights as “codeshare”.
Jetset insists that it did provide the relevant “codeshare” information and that it’s up to Directline what it does with it. Gatwick, meanwhile, says it makes clear which flights are “codeshare” on its departure boards but you, of course, were only looking at check-in screens.
Both Jetset and Directline try to shift the blame on to you for not arriving two hours ahead as advised – Directline even goes so far as to check the traffic reports on the day you travelled to undermine your claim you were delayed on the road.
“Had the passengers arrived at Gatwick two hours before departure, as advised, there would have been some minor inconvenience of being asked to move check-in desk, but the flight would have been comfortably made,” it says, blithely ignoring the amount of time you’d still have wasted queuing at the wrong desk.
The fact is, you were misled as to where you should check in and that’s unacceptable.
ABTA offered to mediate because Jetset is a member, but it has dropped the investigation because, it concluded, the buck seems to stop with Directline, which is not.
Your plight shows the pitfalls of booking through third-party price comparison websites. I’d recommend booking direct through the airline to ensure you receive information first hand.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. Subject to our terms and conditions
