You didn’t hear your alarm and missed your flight. Now what?
If you miss your flight, don’t stress out. There’s more than one way to save your vacation or business trip.
That’s what Laura Coletti discovered when she didn’t make her recent flight from South Bend, Ind., back to New York.
“I slept through my alarm and woke up in a panic when I realized that my flight was taking off in five minutes,” she recalls.
United Airlines’ policy seemed unbending. She risked losing her entire return fare if she didn’t show up for the flight.
Missed flights may be one of the biggest air travel irritants. Depending on where you’re headed, anywhere from 2% to 8% of passengers miss their flight. But there are ways to fix the problem and get to your destination. If you act quickly, know your rights and stay polite, you’ll be on your way.
What to do if you miss your flight
If you think you’re going to miss a flight, call your airline immediately, experts say. The sooner your airline knows that you’ll be late, the more options it has to fix it. Coletti, who works for a marketing agency in New York, phoned United the minute she woke up.
“An agent rebooked me for a slightly later flight from South Bend to LaGuardia with a brief stopover in Chicago,” she says. “I was back in New York just a few hours after I originally would have been. I have no idea why I wasn’t charged for that — I certainly was expecting a cost — but I wasn’t, and I was glad about that.”
How to fix a missed flight
It helps to understand what’s happening behind the scenes. When you miss a flight, it also puts your airline in a difficult position. Chances are, your seat has flown empty. Rebooking you on the next flight means giving you a free ticket. That’s why letting the airline know you’ll be late is so important; it allows the carrier to release the seat and maybe resell it.
Your reasons for missing a flight matter. “If you are at the counter, be polite, explain why you are late,” advises Peter Vlitas, a senior vice president for airline relations at Travel Leaders Group. “Was the airport exit congested? Did it take too long to get to the counter? Make the case that you were late as a function of trying to get to the airport or counter or running to the gate.”
Most airlines have an informal “flat tire” rule that allows them to book you on the next available flight if you have a good reason for getting to the airport late, like, say, a flat tire. Those may include a medical emergency, an accident on the way to the airport or some documentable event beyond your control. Typically, sleeping through your alarm doesn’t count, but agents have some flexibility in how they can apply the flat tire rule.
What are your rights when you miss a flight?
If you missed a flight because you were late to the airport, you don’t have any real rights. Most airlines will classify you as a “no-show” and keep your money. Note that your return flight will also be canceled automatically. If you contact the carrier before the flight departs, you may be able to get a partial ticket credit depending on the kind of ticket you have.
But if you miss a connecting flight, you’re not out of luck. Under most domestic airline policies — which are outlined in the contract of carriage on the airline website — if you miss a connection, it will rebook you on the next flight at no charge.
If that means staying at the airport overnight, the airline will cover a hotel stay.
Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate. Contact him at chris@elliott.org or visit elliott.org.