Gulf Air canceled-flight snafu

I made reservations through Spiekermann Travel on Sept. 23, 2011, for a special Gulf Air bus to take me, on Dec. 3, from Dammam, Saudi Arabia, over the causeway to Bahrain to catch the airline’s flight 707 that afternoon to Addis Ababa. The cost for the bus and the plane together was $320.

These arrangements were confirmed in November by Spiekermann Travel via e-mail.

When I arrived at the bus terminal on Dec. 3, however, I was told that the flight had been canceled. Or, rather, Gulf Air’s representative at the bus station told me that my printed (and confirmed) reservation was wrong because there was no flight to Addis that day and they had never had a flight 707.

I was also told that, even though I had paid for the bus, I would not be allowed on it because it could only be used to take passengers to a flight and I had no flight.

The agent at the bus station recommended that I take a taxi to Bahrain and, once there, try to book a flight to Addis.

The agent called a taxi for me from the parking lot, and the driver charged me $100 to take me to a hotel in downtown Manama, the capital of Bahrain. The cab driver said he could not give me a receipt for this expense. The driver would not take me to the airport because I had no flight reservation. I had to purchase a visa for Bahrain for about $50.

I found a flight two days later, after incurring unexpected expenses of about $140 for a day and a half at a Days Inn plus $70 for meals in Bahrain and $30 for a taxi to the airport. I was able to apply the cost of my canceled flight to the new Gulf Air ticket.

Despite my efforts working through Spiekermann, Gulf Air has refused to pay for my extra expenses and has refused to even refund the money I paid for the bus I wasn’t allowed to take.

In a lifetime of travel, I have never had an airline cancel a flight while offering no reason for doing so and no assistance in rebooking.

ALBERT PODELL
New York City

ITN e-mailed Gulf Air (Box 138, Kingdom of Bahrain; ff@gulfair.com) a copy of Mr. Podell’s letter plus e-mails volunteered to ITN by Spiekermann Travel and received the following letter from Gulf Air on April 3, 2012.

We are sorry to learn of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Podell’s journey from Dammam to Addis Ababa via Bahrain. Our Customer Care department had already sent Mr. Podell a letter explaining the circumstances of the flight cancellation and the alternate travel arrangements made for him.

For your information, Gulf Air operates flights to and from Addis Ababa in accordance with its schedule, which is approved by the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority. Unfortunately, due to clearance issues with the Ethiopian authorities, it was necessary for Gulf Air to reschedule flights to and from Addis Ababa. As a result, on 22nd November 2011 we had to cancel our flight GF707 scheduled for 3 December departing from Bahrain to Addis Abba.

Our records confirm that on 22nd November 2011 a message was queued to the travel agent Cosmopolitan Travel (through whom Mr. Podell booked his ticket) advising them of the flight cancellation and his revised itinerary. Unfortunately, it seems that the passenger was not advised of the same and he came to know of the cancellation upon his arrival at Dammam Airport on the 3rd December.

In an effort to assist, Mr. Podell was provided with surface transportation from Dammam to Bahrain on the 4th December, with an onward connection on flight GF705 from Bahrain to Addis Ababa on the 5th December. However, it is apparent that he chose to travel one day earlier to Bahrain at his own expense. We realize that this had caused various disruptions to his personal itinerary.

In view of these circumstances, our Customer Care department had advised Mr. Podell that regretfully it was not possible to offer any compensation. On behalf of Gulf Air, we apologize for the inconvenience caused to Mr. Podell, which was not within our control.

KARUNAKARAN SRINIVASAN, Manager Corporate Content & Internal Communications, Gulf Air

Mr. Podell wrote ITN on April 11, “To this date, I have never received any communication from Gulf Air.” ITN also sent Spiekermann Travel a copy of Gulf Air’s reply, and Spiekermann sent ITN the following in e-mail.

Cosmopolitan Travel is the consolidator/wholesaler we use for issuing some of our air tickets. We book the tickets, ourselves, and when ticketing time comes we send the passenger name record to Cosmopolitan to issue it.

On Dec. 2, Gulf Air sent an e-mail to us once again confirming that Mr. Podell’s bus and flight were scheduled for the next day.

When Mr. Podell called us on Dec. 3, no one on our end had any indication that Gulf Air had canceled their Bahrain-Addis flight. We followed up with Cosmopolitan Travel, who told us that they, too, had never received a notification in November re Gulf Air canceling the flight.

Later on Dec. 3, Gulf Air sent us an e-mail stating that Mr. Podell could take the Dec. 4 bus in Saudi Arabia to catch the Dec. 5 flight. At that point, he was already in Bahrain.

It is the conventional understanding that when an airline cancels a flight, they automatically protect the passengers, even if that means routing them with another carrier (and incurring a higher fare using the other airline), let alone offering accommodation and meal vouchers and transportation from/to the terminal if the passenger has to be stranded in that city.

In 22 years of sending travelers and tour groups all over the Near East, Africa and Europe, most of the time we have had airlines compensate the passengers when they canceled flights. The airlines secured them on alternative flights/routes to get them to their final destinations, and if the inconvenience included overnight stays or delays beyond the reasonable five to eight hours, they automatically gave the travelers hotel vouchers and meal vouchers.

I’ve had those cases with almost every airline we’ve dealt with, such as Egyptair, Turkish Airlines, Royal Jordanian, etc.

The surprising part is that Gulf Air did nothing to accommodate Mr. Podell. To totally ignore him was unheard of!

IHAB ZAKI, Owner, Spiekermann Travel Service, Inc., 18421 E. Nine Mile Rd., Eastpointe, MI 48021