Missed connecting flight - not due to flight delay

[Gabitule]

I am so stressed and upset.

My boyfriend and I booked return flights from London to Borneo via Luala Lumpur (KL). For the outbound flight the layover in KL was 1 hour and 10 mins. Very short, I know, but I’ve read that airlines don’t (shouldn’t) sell tickets with short connecting times unless they know that the connection is possible. Plus, when booking 2 flights on the same ticket, I’ve never needed more than 30 mins or so to make the connection.

We arrived in KL to discover that, although both flights into and out of KL were sold as being at the same terminal, the terminal has 2 buildings which require a bus transfer. There is usually a faster train but that is currently suspended. We arrived at KL early and had 1 hour and 30 mins to make our connection. We rushed but by the time we walked through the terminal, got on the bus, had the bus transfer and went through long security queues on the other side, we missed our connection. The airline (Air Malaysia) didn’t send any staff to put us forward through security and the plane didn’t wait for us. Eleven people in total missed their flight.
The airline refused to put us on a later flight free of charge as the original flight had not been delayed. We had to pay for new flights from KL to Borneo. They blamed us for not allowing enough time for the transfer and the airport for security delays. I explained that had it not been for the bus transfer we would have made our connection but they don’t want to know.
The current position is this:

• The airline won’t refund our tickets from KL to Borneo.
• airport security won’t refund us as it’s the passengers responsibility to allow ample time for the connection (even though they only had 2 people at the security counters handling hundreds of passengers)
• the travel insurance won’t pay as we ‘’failed to arrive at the departure gate for our connecting flight’’.
• the travel agent (Expedia) is ignoring us

I find this grossly unfair. Yes, of course I am responsible for allowing enough time for transfers, but surely the airline should not sell impossible connections. They surely know that the transfer involves a bus journey (the train has been suspended for a while now) and that clearing security in KL takes a long time. When they unloaded the bags from our second flight (together with the bags of 9 other passengers) they knew that we were likely stuck behind the security gates but nobody came to try and get us to the front of the queue.

The biggest problem is that we are going back to London tomorrow and have 1 hour and 25 mins connection time in KL. I spent my entire holiday trying to get my flights changed so I don’t miss the connection again. The airline wanted £900 to change our flights even though I explained that missing our connection is as much (if not more) their fault than ours but they wouldn’t budge. The airline then stopped blaiming the airport security and said that the fault lies with Expedia as we had bought the tickets from them: We reached out to Expedia for their support but they refuse to respond to our email and keep asking that we call them - which we cannot as we are abroad so it would be v expensive.

If we miss the connection back home, which looks likely, I simply can’t afford a last minute flight from KL to London. I saved all year for this holiday and everything was carefully budgeted.

Has anything been in this situation (ie missed connections not due to flight delays) and how did you resolve it?

thank you

Expedia need to help out here. They sold you a ticket that isn't possible ie too short transfer. So you need to get hold of them somehow
Can't you call on a WiFi call rather than land line ?

You need to call Expedia using wifi and despite the cost of the call.

you can call expedia from abroad if you call on skype or zoom or teams or any of the internet-phone services available.

Agree that your contract is with Expedia and they need to sort this out. The airport will definitely not refund you anything, they haven't sold you anything, and the airlines contract is will Expedia.

Also, when you miss an outgoing flight they will usually cancel your return flight, so make sure you actually still have a valid booking to get to KL. It might be different since it was a second leg of journey but best to check anyway.

Did you book a return to KK or to KL + separate internal flight to KK?
Was your luggage tagged for KK when you left London?
If KK, it's the airlines problem and they should have put you on the next flight.
We have done the same route with a 1hr 20 layover (and 1hr 30 on the return). That's what they sold it as. We did make the connection but our luggage didn't and they transferred it on a later flight.

i don't think it is the airline that needs to sort it since they booked through a third party. It's Expedia that needs to sort this as they have entered a contract with both OP and the airline. I never book flights through third parties because of this, they are usually really shit when things go wrong and it gets unnecessarily complicated.

I’ve never needed more than 30 mins or so to make the connection.

Do you mean this, exact airport and connection or at other airports? I've never know an international connection to be less than 2hrs and that would be pushing it at some airports. I agree, its for expedia to sort out.

Sorry to hear of this, and presumably the impact on your trip caused by the worry whilst away.

Responsibility might depend on (a) whether Expedia was 'simply' acting as agent for Air Malaysia (as the T&Cs will sometimes provide for) and/or (b) whether this was somehow 'packaged up' by Expedia combining separate bookings for the separate legs. The first of these would seem more likely, in which case I would think that responsibility is likely to rest with Air Malaysia rather than Expedia, but it might be worth checking the initial booking confirmation to see.

Did you pay by (UK based) credit card? That might well be a route worth considering in due course, though appreciate that does not solve the immediate booking dilemma for tomorrow.

Airport security didn't chose your flights
Air Malasyia didn't chose your flights
It is not either of those people's problem if your flights are too close together.

Expedia booked your flights. As much as I feel for you as this is not your fault and is a rubbish situation, if you want to resolve the situation, you need to do what it takes to contact Expedia. Neither Expedia's mistakes with flight booking, or Expedia being hard or expensive to contact are Airport security's or Air Malasyia's problem and neither of them have your money, so they don't owe you anything. Expedia are the ones who have your money to provide you with a service, so they need to be the ones to make sure they do what they said.

To everyone saying she shouldn't have chosen a short connection, Ive just checked Malaysian Airlines own website.
They sell a through ticket on their own site with a 1hr 10 mins. Their own website says minimum connection time of 1hr.

I had a long thread about missing a connection in Dublin. The first flight was delayed by weather so it's not the same, but I'm furious with Aer Lingus for selling such a short turnaround when they themselves operate the airport and know exactly what the transfer time should be. I didn't get much sympathy on here and Aer Lingus said I could have a refund but the admin required is not worth the stress so I've fucked it off and will just avoid Dublin for the rest of my life.

Ah, thanks everyone, I didn’t think Expedia were the ones to pursue as I just viewed them as an online platform for purchasing tickets with the connection time Air Malaysia had already set; but I guess they are responsible - I’ll look into it properly.

I’m a bit more hopeful of getting help from Expedia than Air Malaysia who have been sooo useless. There’s other issues with them aswell - for example they charged our credit card for seats we didn’t select (they should have been free) and they are generally unable to apply common sense to any conversation I have with them. When I call them, everyone I speak with tells me something else and I genuinely don’t understand how they operate as an airline wirh such widespread incompetence.

A poster said that the admin required to get these refunds are not worth the stress, and I do agree; however, I feel I have to persevere with this out of principle more than anything else as I HATE it when consumers are taken advantage of. A friend of mine works for an airline and I reached out to her for advice. She immediately told me that it was my fault and not the airline and to suck it up. Really upsetting that airlines staff have this mindset. They sell short connections to fill their flights (as the short flight was not a desirable one) without considering whether people can actually make the connections.

Im waiting to see if we make the connection back home tonight, and then I’m onto Expedia to see how/ if they can help. I will update this threat in case other people have the same issues in the future.

thank you again

Completely unrelated question - why does MNHQ no longer allows messages to be posted before reviewing them? I don’t remember this happening before. (I don’t post often)

Because a few nights ago many people received a dm that included links to vile images of CSA, same as the ones that meant photo posting had to be changed.

Something you wrote in that post has triggered the AI they're using to pick up anything that has even a slight possibility of being a concern would be my guess, but you could ask in the Nightwatch topic

Nightwatch is here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_night_watch?order-by=newest

Expedia who you booked with (I suspect at a cheaper price than MAS, Malaysian Airlines) are the ones to deal with unfortunately, as a 3rd party agent they can be notoriously difficult to deal with with problems, its not Malaysian Airlines issue to deal with them but if you had booked direct it would of been different.

Malaysian Airlines have a min connection time of 60mins at KLIA, and usually its fine, but with the train not being in service (since March 2023 and delayed until later this year for repairs) between the main terminal and the satellite building , defiantly more time getting from one to the other should of been done.

I would think long and hard about your return flight to KL, if you dont take that first flight from Boneo (assuming Kota Kinabalu) with MAS and decide to pay for another cheaper flight say with Air Asia to get there earlier, they will see you as no shows for you flight from KL back to the UK and cancel your onward booking. So the choice is to either see what happens or for pay for the change of flights through Malaysian Airlines.

Just ring Expedia. It might be expensive but it won’t be as expensive as £900 in flights.

we almost missed our connection in Bangkok. I would never now have less than 3 hours. It’s too risky

The sounds really rubbish OP - 1 hour 30 would normally be plenty. I've even had 45 minutes connections before.

The fast train not running seems like it's what caused the issue which is super unfortunate. Are you able to confirm with KL airport if the trains are back running now? If they are then I would be a lot less worried.

But hopefully you can get in touch with expedia and get changed to a later flight so you don't have to stress.

Why has my perfectly normal reply been hidden?

Because there will be a trigger word in there somewhere activating the filters. Ask on Nightwatch

Oh thanks for that, no idea how to ask, its never happened before.

I just hope the OP has not booked an earlier flight with another airline thats cheaper then Malaysian Airlines, to get to KLIA then find out the onward flight from Kuala Lumpur would be cancelled due to a no show from the first flight.

No, no, I didn’t do this as I knew they’d cancel the second leg of my flight :)

I wonder what will happen when my other message, which I posted a few hours ago and is currently hidden, gets posted - will it appear as the most recent message or halfway through the thread, in the order it was posted. A bit of a nightmare wirh so many messages having to be reviewed…