I am not sure how people on this thread are blaming the passenger... Seriously!! If you paid for a ticket you should get a seat... plain and simple.
But that's not the truth, so there's nothing plain or simple about it. Air travel doesn't work like that. The sooner we all realize how flying works, the better.
If you have something important to get to, first you have to know that things might happen and you might not get there. Having high status is great. You're covered from a lot of issues. If you don't have high status, at the very least JOIN the FF program of the airline. Do online checkin if at all possible.
DH travels often, and on a recent long flight his ^&*()* corporate TA wouldn't let him book it straight through Delta. They made him book one part of his flight (Buenos Aires to Santiago to Atlanta to Seattle) directly through the local airline, instead of the Delta codeshare, because it was $200 less. He wasn't able to check in ahead of time for ANY of it. He was nervous that he was going to have to get his bag, go through Customs, recheck the bag, etc...because he didn't have time for that. It was impossible. He has status with airlines, but an obnoxious quirk of the corporate TA kept him from protecting his (business!) travel. Thankfully it all worked out; he watched them tag his bag alllll the way through to Seattle so he could breathe. But he still couldn't do any checking in to the rest of the flight until he got to Chile.
If you hear any announcements about the flight being oversold, be on alert. If no one's giving up their seat, be more nervous. If you're told something has gone awry, get on your phone even while the agent is working on things in front of you. Not to be rude, but to have double the chances of getting help. Walk and talk. Start the process of getting the bag back ASAP. Call your TA! Heck, have ALL required documents and receipts and numbers and everything with you.
My husband had a flight out of Newark, got there drastically early because otherwise it was sitting around his hotel lobby, and as it got closer to his flight time, realized there was really bad weather. Talked to someone at the airport, ended up getting his flight changed, the new one was out of LaGuardia. As he taxiied to NY the weather followed. HIs flight to Savannah got cancelled. As did the others. Hours later he ended up on some plane heading to...somewhere west of Savannah, where he got a car, got a hotel, got some sleep, and woke up super early to drive over there.
Flight problems HAPPEN. We can't just bury our heads in the sand and pretend it's all a glorious shiny world where nothing ever goes floopy.
We ONCE had an overnight flight landing the day of our cruise. Nonstop, no bad weather anywhere...we were soooo nervous. We won't do that again.
Did I miss the part about the airline's claim that she didn't have a valid ticket? Yet she had a boarding pass?
In there was...
"She also showed the agent her travel documents and managed to contact the tour company to email her a receipt, proving that she had indeed paid for her airline ticket."
I've had floopy things happen with my boarding pass at least once, where they had to go back and look at something on their monitors before either printing me a new one or letting me go. Things look fine at the bag check area, but odd at the gate.
Her comments only seem to be about how the agent spoke and that she wished she knew that she was being bumped. She doesn't seem to be freaking out about the problem there. So I have a feeling she knew something was funky.
Why am I reminded of United Airlines?
Because it's yet another case of an airline passenger blaming the airline for things? At least she didn't flat out tell the gate agent that they would have to drag her out of the airport while going limp...
"the agent directed her...in another section of the terminal, where she had to wait in line for help"
OMG woman get on your laptop, get on your phone, and get in virtual line *while walking to the CS line*. Never ONLY go to the physical line.
It's unfortunate that this happened. I'm glad Lindblad is letting her go another time. I hope she gives herself at LEAST a full day prior to fly in. Galapagos cruises aren't to be trifled with! Not a lot of leeway there.
