Maybe making a couple of assumptions here, but from the flight times posted I take it the flights were both BA. In which case your friend and her bags should have been checked through to Cape Town at the Manchester checkin (done this route myself) and as both flights now go through Terminal 5 an hour should be reasonable time to get off one plane and board the other. Friend of mine went through it last week and was full of praise for it.

If for some reason, your friend had to checkin at T5 for the long haul then an hour wouldnt do it.

If both flights were with BA and she missed her flight due to one being delayed i thought that BA would put her up in a hotel.

Travel companies conform to something called a MCT - Minimum Connection Time, which the airline advises taking into consideration average delays, terminals etc. This might be 50 minutes if connecting at Singapore Changi, to 2 1/2 hours if changing airlines & terminals at Heathrow for example. If there is a problem with the connection, and they miss their onward flight, the airline is responsible for looking after them, and re-booking them onto a later flight, and putting them up in a hotel or feeding them if needbe.

If we presume your friend was on the following flights:

MAN LHR 1715 1815 BA1403
CPT 1920#0750 BA 59

Leaving 1 hour 5 minutes, this is a permissable connection (although I had to double check - BA are obviously very confident that Terminal 5 is working smoothly!).

Therefore this is a BA problem, not a Trailfinders problem, although with so many Manchester - Heathrow flights, they should have exercised a little more common-sense and booked them on an earlier flight.

So, your friend should claim through travel insurance.

However, I will also say that BA should have put them on a later flight (SAA have a 21.30 flight to Cape Town, or BA could have put them on their 21.15 flight via Jo'burg). However, i'm not sure if a) there was space or b) not knowing what time their Manchester flight arrived this might not have been possible.

What I will say is that BA should have accommodated & fed your friend. That they didn't is perhaps because your friend didn't press them to, and they took advantage of this. If this had been me, I can guarantee I would have been on an alternate flight, or BA would have been putting me up in a very nice hotel.

However, it's not a Trailfinders problem, and there is no comeback there. They are an excellent company, so i'm sure everything else will go smoothly.

Thanks for your replies folks!

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to speak with my friend. We only had contact by text on the dreaded night as she is travelling alone, I wanted to be sure she reached her destination safely. However, she will be staying at relatives in Australia for a couple of weeks in a short time so I will forward the link to this thread to her email.

Manchester flights can often get delayed and particularly these at the end of the workday. I wish I had a pound for every businessman I had to wait for jumping on the LGW to MAN flight frantically waving his briefcase! Also, what used to be a 45 minute flight plan eventually turned into being shown as over an hour because aircraft were either queuing on the tarmac or in the air at the London end...

I don't know the in's and out's of what happened but on checking her itinerary she posted on her "blog" then they were both BA flights and due in and out of T5. I thought the same, there are enough flights from MAN to LHR without leaving it to the very last flight before the one to Cape Town. I don't think she was given the best advice and it certainly seems that nobody told her about the other flight....

It will be interesting to see what the story is when it unfolds. I gather her bags were checked through as her man friend has told me she had no clean clothes and the IBIS hotel wanted to charge her £10 to hire a hairdryer!

Will keep you posted if I get more updates.

Thanks again.

CwB

I have a bit more info on this now....

My friend tells me BA did put her up in a hotel at Heathrow but wouldn't let her take her luggage.
The main problem was that (1) she missed her first day and the first night in a hotel which she had already paid for and (2) a driver went to the airport to meet her and she had to pay for him to come back and meet her again the next day.

Trailfinders said it was BA's mistake as they had offered that connection in the first place.

I still don't see why she should have to claim from her insurance and will lose out on the first x amount of pounds, when either Trailfinders or BA could have advised on a different connection flight without any chance of missing the onward longhaul flight to Cape Town.

CwB

I do find it incredulous that BA think it's possible to to connect in 1 hr 5 minutes at Heathrow, they obviously have confidence in the connection. In fact I can see that British Midland and South African Airlines allow 1 hr 15 for their Manchester - Cape Town connection.

If I was them I would still claim on their insurance (it's why it's there? Claiming once doesn't invalidate future claims), and issue a complaint against BA to see if there is any goodwill (there would be if your friend was an Executive Club member). However, she won't get anything back from Trailfinders imo.

Thanks for your input Travelling Sam.

I've emailed the link for this thread to her so she can catch up when she updates her "blog" during her travels.

Given the fact she will be travelling until mid November.... when should she put this claim in place?

She is travelling pretty much the whole of the southern hemisphere before returning to UK mid November then moving permanently to Cyprus a little over a week later.

CwB

Hi, we went on a world trip last year - all booked thought Trailfinders - we had a fantastic time - at each stop the local office contacted us to check everthing was OK and ready to book any other trips. We had one hicup - which a quick phone call put right straight away. We were so happy with the service we used them again this year for our sons gap year - which took him to south america - australia and china. All went well and was some £1600 cheaper than the other flight quotes.
Sorry your friend missed her flight - but it is important for travellers to check the detail - which you can do on line before payment.

It seems each of them blame the other....

Trailfinders say BA say the connection time is okay and BA say Trailfinders could have put my friend on an earlier flight.

Needless to say, my friend is still out of pocket by an extra overnight stay at Heathrow.

Luckily, there were no other mishaps during her 7 week trip across Australia and South America and everything else went according to plan. Most unfortunate though it was the first day of her holiday that went wrong and took the edge off her initial excitement.

Any agent making such a reservation should be aware that you don't book the last available flight to tie up with a long haul flight. I just wish I had known about it before as I would have advised her to take an earlier connection

CwB

It seems each of them blame the other....

Unfortunate but there is also a third person to blame here - in my opinion - the person who is traveling. Did they not ask the question when booking if adequate time was being allowed?

Personal experience tells me that "sods law" applies - if something can go wrong it will.

We constantly blame others but the answer is always in our own hands. Ask the question - at least then if it goes wrong then it strengthens your argument when seeking recompense.

In this case it was at the start - a much bigger problem if stuck in some strange airport several thousand miles from home. A lesson anyone reading this topic may learn a lesson from.

fwh

Unfortunately not everyone is an experienced traveller. The first time I went to the USA almost forty years ago the furthest I had flown previously had been Italy, one flight non-stop, but on this flight I had to change in Chicago and my flight was late taking off so I was sure I would miss my onward flight, luckily the flight Chicago -LA was delayed and I was able to board, but it would never have occured to me to question the timing that the travel agent had arranged for my flights. Of course after many years of travelling I'm aware of time needed at airports and plan accordingly. But for many people who rarely travel, and who wouldn't ever discuss, plan and book flights/holidays on the net as I do probably wouldn't even register that one hour was was too short a time, let alone question it. They use TA'S because they regard them as experts.
We post on HT because have an interest and experience in travel and would probably notice straight away that the time given at LHR would not be enough, but in this case I would say the customer put her trust in Trailfinders who should have known that Heathrow is a bottleneck and planned the flights accordingly.

That's exactly the case Judith.

My friend trusted Trailfinders to plan and book her flights according to her itinerary, which incidentally Trailfinders put together for her.

She wasn't aware she could have taken an earlier flight thus avoiding the disappointment of missing her first planned trip of her itinerary in South Africa.

Had I known of the times etc before she left Manchester, I would have been able to advise her differently.

I lay the blame at Trailfinders door. They knew full well there were other flights my friend could have taken from Manchester for this not to have happened....

Their loss - she won't be using them in the future!

CwB

I think we'll all end with different viewpoints, but I personally would put my hands up and say 'it's just one of those things'.

I wouldn't blame Trailfinders as they have only done what BA have told them is absolutely fine.

BA obviously think that 1 hour is sufficient time at T5, whereas we wouldn't. However, as they are responsible for re-booking and accommodating and feeding people that miss their connections, there can't be that many that do otherwise it would be a commercial disaster for them.

What happens when you book a connecting flight is you enter a command along the lines of MANJNB/BA and you get the top 3 set of connecting flights on BA - ranked on best connections, so the 1 hour connection is most prominent. BA pushes you to book that connection, as I imagine they would on BA.COM.

C'est la vie. Blames a waste of energy and emotions imo. Sure she'll have forgotten it by the time she returns.

Trailfinders have always done a great job for me but I am an experienced traveller. Often when I have a domestic flight to Heathrow and that flight is before noon then I nearly always will fly down the night before. The hotel cost for me does not really come into it as if there is just one morning flight then if it is cancelled or late leaving I would be panic struck.
Maybe I am extra cautious. Always before they spoke of 90 minutes as being the minimum time but with T5 now I'd want more and remember the baggage also has to transfer.

Sue

G'day Sue

How's the trip going, are you going to give us a report?

Sorry,

Judith

Sorry yes off topic but it is going great!! Weather here in Perth is ideal. The Barbie is just on as per often. Yes will do a report when I get home or get the time.

Happy Christmas everyone from sunny Australia!

Sue