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

I feel your pain. We nearly missed our connection from Mumbai to Goa recently as we had no idea we had to collect our luggage, check it in again, and then go through the excruciatingly long immigration process, I mean we knew we needed to go through immigration but my point is, despite it seemingly being computerised, each operative was so slow it was taking 20 minutes per person!

@Iamblossom interesting point about luggage, how do you know whether (or not) to collect it and check it in again, or whether it will go right through to your final destination?

I book a lot of flights at work, and our policy is no less than 4 hours between flights. Any less, then even if you make it, your bags probably won’t .

If you've booked a through flight you're OK.
Eg I booked Cardiff to kuala lumpur with change in Amsterdam but my ticket was the whole journey.

If you've a split eg if I'd booked 2 separate flights you'd have to get luggage in between.
Sorry I'm crap at explaining

We had a lady literally waiting for 6 of us straight outside the plane from Lot ( Polish) at Warsaw to escort us through the airport and onto the flight for Krakow ( on a tiny but cute embraer)

That's why I won't ever do connections without a through ticket unless there is no other option - in which case I allow 4 hours.

I can't work out if OP had a through ticket on outward journey - rather than 2 separate flights. ( or maybe I've missed this) If she did then I think air Malaysia are indeed responsible , as at the point of taking baggage off they should have been at security and over the tannoys locating these passengers .

We reached the back of queue and didn’t want to simply walk to the front of the queue, as I wouldn’t appreciate it if someone did that while I was patiently waiting in the queue. So I approached several member of staff to ask for help, who simply turned their back on me as i was talking and walked away 😀. Eventually one said that I should ask people in the queue to let me through. So while I was doing this one of the airport staff checked the boarding passes of people at the front of the queue and then told me that their flight was before mine (by 15 mins) and that I should stay put. Except that it took much longer than 15 mins to get from the back of the queue to the front of the queue!

I understand that the responsability seems to rest with Expedia who sold me the tickets, but they only bought and resold the tickets that were made available by Air Malaysia. I believe the real fault lies with Air Malaysia. They are based in KL and they know what the situation is in the airport. On the day of the flight they knew there was a huge immigration queue but they didnt send anyone to take us to the front of the queue. Their justification when i asked why they didnt come to get us or delay the flight a bit was that 3 people from our flight made the connection and why couldnt we? They ignored the fact that 11 people didnt! What's more upseting is that they had 2 seats available on the next flight and, with an hour left to departure, they made us buy new tickets even though they wouldn't have sold those 2 seats to someone else and they already got money from us for the flight we missed. There would have been no financial detriment to them if they allowed us to board the flight free of charge. So I wish i could make a complaint against them but instead I have to plead with Expedia.

We did have a through ticket, they loaded our luggage on the second plane and then, when we didn’t turn up, instead of coming to get us from the immigration queue, they unloaded the luggage (together with the luggages of 9 other people) and made everyone buy new tickets

Yes, we flew to the Malaysian part of Borneo, and nobody told us anything about the 2 terminal buildings, the bus transfer or anything else

@Gabitule oh I think I would definitely pursue this with Malaysian air - including small claims if necessary - if it's a through tix they know you are on that flight and have a responsibility to at least attempt to rush you through, - I would check your rights - a good google online should find previous situations and who to complain to

Yes, good tip! If Expedia refuses to reply to our emails then we have stronger case to get the credit card company to refund us. Like I said, I am reluctant to try to resolve things over the phone as I know I’ll be pushed around from one person to another and Expedia will blame Air Malaysia and Air Malaysia will blame the airport security and so on…

Borneo was great, but it depends on what you’re looking for. From my point of view it was great for wildlife and nature, but not so much for swimming beaches or food, comparing to other countries from that part of the world. Happy to tell you more if you want to drop me a pm

Hmm, interesting, so my contract might in fact be with Air Malaysia, and not Expedia. I would prefer this because that would give me the option of escalating my complaint to the aviation authority. I assume the aviation authority can check how many flights with the same connection time were missed, so they can determine if air Malaysia should have known that 1 hour and 10 mins was not sufficient to make the connection. Because without this I don’t know if I stand much of a chance - the guidance suggests that an hour is enough for transfers in Kuala Lumpur and my connection was just over an hour. In theory the airline has not done anything wrong (but in practice they should have helped us fast track security, they could have held the plane a bit longer, they should have offered few seats on the next flight, etc).

So far Air Malaysia said they’re not responsible as we booked the flights to Expedia so I’m waiting to hear if Expedia admits or denies responsability. Unfortunately I can’t call them as my boyfriend is the one who booked the flights so I’m waiting for him to call them and try to sort this out - but he’s too preoccupied with his swollen ankle so I just have to wait, arghhh

Like I said, when we were in the airport trying to catch our connection and also after we missed our fight, the airline didn’t know that we did not book our flights directly though them and they were not helpful, believe it or not. It wasn’t until we raised a complaint with them some days later than they checked our tickets and realised that the flights were booked via Expedia.

Also, we did not book separate tickets, we booked connecting flights and our luggage was sent through to destination, marked for a fast transfer due to the short connecting time, which is why our luggage made it to the second plane even though we didn’t

the plane didn’t wait for us.

I'm sorry that you expected them to, but it's not a taxi service.

It's all to do with the control tower and flight logistics. Arrival and take-off and all that.
Like traffic lights at junctions and zebra crossings.

Yes, travel is stressful. It's why I always do a hotel between interconnecting long-distance flights.

Sorry you had to go through that which should have been the holiday of a lifetime.

That sounds like a real security risk. I thought planes were supposed to offload bags if the passengers don’t get on the plane because it could be an explosive?

edited, sorry just seen they offloaded your luggage.

i agree with a pp that when I was in a similar situation on a through ticket they escorted us through the airport to get to the gate. And btw the plane did wait for us for ten minutes. So sometimes they do.

To be fair nobody told me but I found the info whilst reading TripAdvisor forum /Facebook. I therefore chose a flight from Thailand with a greater time between connections when we flew into KUL.
We only had a short transfer in Amsterdam but I know they're good at this.

Yes, we flew to the Malaysian part of Borneo, and nobody told us anything about the 2 terminal buildings, the bus transfer or anything else

You have to do your own homework for this kind of thing. I.e. google KL airport for info.
You don't have to pay on the metro from KL airport into the city. Good to know.

Bloody ell, I was at Heathrow Airport in December. They have 5!! terminals, so I did my homework - arriving and leaving from 2 different ones.

You have an amazing view of how airlines operate. So I’m going to be blunt.

Firstly for a very expensive long haul destination you booked via Expedia.

Secondly you should have booked via Air Malaysia with a connecting flight ticket, one that means they will get you there eventually with no extra should something go wrong.

Thirdly you were extremely blasé about barging to the top of queues, most people get it, I go out of my way for stressed passengers, had a bunch of idiotic panicked Spanish students at an airport recently we let thru at baggage security who somehow were again panicked at passport control when my 17 year old asked them where they were going, to find out it was the same as our destination. How they were again behind us we couldn’t figure out, and we are very slow as one of us is disabled.

Fourthly you are under the mistaken impression airport staff will guide you thru just because you ask. They spot entitled late passengers every day. Could not care less.

Fiftly your contact is with Expedia.

Sixthly, foreign airports in long haul destinations are known nightmares, heck I won’t even do Heathrow!

We are very well travelled, have had Aer Lingus staff wait to catch Eu and UK passengers into Dublin at gate to whisk us to US immigration and onto US bound flights. Have had Delta Atlanta waiting after the two to three hour immigration help us grab our bags to get on Orlando flights. Literally physically grabbing the bags to get passengers onto flights. Have had Iberia experience, fly to Madrid or Barcelona and then to your regional, one of our teenagers caught internal train in Madrid that I didn’t realise existed to catch a flight, bags arrived two days later, another child of 15 they tried to deny boarding in Galicia to Madrid, begged to get on, they rejected, got to Madrid, ran for gate in Madrid and got last seat, Galicia said the Madrid flight was full, but if they got to Madrid and ran they might make it, plus Galicia took pity and let them on there. But the key was connecting flights booked directly with one airline as a thru ticket. So if it went pear shaped you’d be covered. It helps no immigration etc. (We are EU non Schengen - different for UK or Ireland. )

Did you enjoy your holiday and would you recommend it?

Lastly don’t assume anything, book direct and know the rules, the airport, immigration. It doesn’t really matter on a flight to Paris or Malaga, but long haul with immigration, security, general mahem don’t cut corners. Especially with connections,

I found out later that if your second, connecting flight is Domestic you have to collect your luggage from the international flight you took first and check it in again. If your second, connecting flight is International it goes all the way through to your final destination.

I know this message wasn’t addressed to me, but I wanted to say that on many occasions our second flights were domestic but we didn’t have to collect our luggage after the first, international flights. Both flights booked on one through ticket wirh the same airline- maybe different to your booking

Ah my theory doesn't hold water then. Although our flights were with different airlines...

If the international and domestic flights (or any other 2 flights) are wirh different airlines then indeed you’d have to collect your luggage. I learned this the hard (and stressful) way when I found myself in an airport (can’t remember where) and needing a visa which I didn’t have in order to exit security and go and collect my luggage. 😀😀

If the international and domestic flights (or any other 2 flights) are wirh different airlines then indeed you’d have to collect your luggage. I learned this the hard (and stressful) way when I found myself in an airport

That’s definitely not universally true, you can make a connected booking with two separate airlines who are in an alliance/subject to a codeshare agreement and not have to collect luggage - it may well be tagged all the way through to final destination.

This subject is a bit of a minefield (especially if you chuck the US attitude to connections into the mix) so unfortunately it’s a bit of a case by case (SWIDT) basis - the best solution might well be to find someone to ask at check-in/bag drop, though I know that is getting harder and harder these days.

Making a mental note never to book any sort of trip with more than one flight .....

While I'm here can I ask if I was to fly Heathrow to Colombo on Qatar airlines via DOH Hamad International, with a 1.5 stop there - all booked as one (indirect) flight via Qatar website am I likely to make my connecting flight? If I didn't would I be protected as it's all via them?

You can do what I did and pay for the escorting services. I had an hour and twenty and it worked well.

Am I the only reader of this thread scratching their head about which airlines are involved? It seems to ping back and forth between Malaysian Airlines and Air Malaysia, which are two completely different companies that don't appear to have any shared ownership. Airline names are often not very easy to distinguish, of course - did you know that there is a small airline in Alaska called "Ryan Air" (with two words)?

I mention this partly because it's always annoying when company X gets a beating for something that company Y did, but also because of all of your flights are with the same airline you often have benefits for rebooking in case of a missed connection, which you don't if you are changing to another airline or alliance/codeshare group.