B Vaughan schrieb:
> We've just returned from a Christmas visit to Mexico, where our whole
> family met in Cancun for a week. On the way back, we missed a
> connection in Mexico City and as a result spent 24 hours in the 7th
> circle of Hell that passes for an airport there.
>
> We had bought a Lufthansa ticket Bologna->Frankfurt->Mexico
> City->Cancun and return. I made the purchase over the phone, as
> Lufthansa's web site was hiccuping that day. The segment Mexico City
> -> Cancun was operated by Mexicana (Mexico's most modern airline,
> giggle, cough) whom Lufthansa doesn't blush to claim as a partner.
Barbara,
I'm sorry to hear about your missed connection, but I just looked at
the LH site and I don't see Mexicana listed as a Star Alliance partner.
http://konzern.lufthansa.com/en/html/allianzen/star_alliance/partner/index.html
However, the Mexicana site lists LH as a partner. Hmm.
T.
>
> The first thing that irritated me was that, although we landed just 15
> minutes late, our flight to Frankfurt didn't wait for us. We were
> approaching the gate when it took off. Then, it turned out to be
> impossible to find any information about reticketing in the Mexico
> City airport. We spent almost 5 hours there on wild goose chases and
> waiting in futile lines and pursuing false leads. We left at 1:30 AM
> with nothing resolved, and hungry and angry besides. We had to find a
> hotel ourselves at our own expense and, as for dinner, we just never
> got it.
>
> Although we were initially promised tickets on the first Europe bound
> flight leaving the airport, in the end, it seems that both Mexicana
> and Lufthansa claim absolutely no responsibility for what happened.
> Mexicana's explanation is that it wasn't their fault but the airport's
> fault. (I've been rebooked on other airlines when the fault is the
> weather, so this makes no sense to me.) Lufthansa claims that the
> ticket was sold as two separate tracts, one Bolgna -> Frankfurt
> ->Mexico City and return, and another, entirely independent, Mexico
> City -> Cancun and return. This apparently is what absolves them from
> responsibility, although Mexicana is their partner and the late flight
> was codeshared with Lufthansa.
>
> I have looked over the tickets carefully since I got home, and I don't
> see anything that stipulates this condition. The whole thing arrived
> in the mail, all three segments stapled together, and a single
> itinerary in the front. It seems to me that the Lufthansa
> representative who sold me the tickets should have explained it. I
> would probably have got a different flight, given that the connection
> in Mexico City was a bit tight.
>
> I'm wondering if the selling of tickets like this is legal in the
> European Union. Or do these consumer protection laws not apply to
> flights that touch down outside the European Union?
>
> The worst thing about the whole experience was the false information
> we got from Lufthansa representatives and Mexicana representatives at
> the airport. In the end, after having wasted all that time, I called
> Lufthansa in Germany from my cell phone, and was basically told that
> we were screwed and that all the promises that had been made were
> phantasma.
>
> I've travelled in China in the 1980's, and until now all my airport
> horror stories dated from that time. I've also travelled in Africa in
> the 1990's; nothing I've ever experienced comes close to the chaos and
> confusion of the Mexico City airport.
>
> To those of you who excoriate Ryanair: no airline gives a shit about
> their passengers any more, and Ryanair is at least cheap.
> |
