An Iberia agent blamed Expedia for unpaid fares when denying a passenger boarding. The real reason, which Iberia later admitted, was a simple oversold flight.
Did Iberia claim that at any point? Seems to me like handling agent screwing up, with Iberia providing correct information when contacted. Obviously it's not any less bad (they are ultimately responsible for their representatives) but explains the stuff Ben wonders about, especially when it comes to "admitting the truth".
@ Samo -- Fair, but at the end of the day, consumers get into a contract with an airline. A contractor acts as a representative of the airline. If your bag is lost while flying with Iberia, you'd still claim that Iberia lost the bag, even if the baggage handling work is contracted out to a third party.
I agree - hence my comment on this scenario not being any less bad. But if Iberia never had intent to lie, that explains why they didn't try to cover it up either 🙂
Ben, I wouldn't let folks like Samo try to sane-wash this one so easily. (Oh, no, you see, they didn't 'intend' to lie...) Psh. They got caught; if they hadn't, they'd've gotten away with this bad-faith practice, which is a systemic problem that should be called-out, like you've done. Iberia (all airlines) should improve their tech and training to ensure this doesn't happen again.
Oof, glad Iberia got called out. I often say, EU261 is ‘better than nothing, but not perfect.’ While EU rules are way better for delays, cancellations, and duty of care, the US still handles involuntary denied boarding better. After Dr. Dao, US airlines do tend to pay volunteers well (up to $10K!) to avoid IDB; whereas Iberia supposedly can just lie about a fake ‘ticketing error’ to cover-up their oversold flights. Ideally, we want US DOT for oversold flights, and EU261 for everything else! If only we could reform/merge these two systems…
In theory, EU rules are quite good, just not enforced well (which is the problem with entire 261/2004). Airlines are supposed to seek volunteers for denied boarding first. When they do that, there's pretty much always someone willing to fly later in return for few hundreds euros compensation, so IDB should pretty much never happen (perhaps except peak travel days like Christmas etc). Problem is that especially in recent days airlines often fail to ask for volunteers, despite being required to do so by law, and will just unload whoever is on the bottom of the priority ranking...
Yes, there are many good rules/laws (in the EU, US, and elsewhere) that should be better enforced and improved, EU261-included; thankfully, the EU did recently reinforce its regulations, which is better for most passengers, but still may not be seen as 'enough' for some; I agree that IDB is a specific area that still needs further improvements.
Did any other passengers get bumped? Or was he the only passenger to be left behind? Why was this clear already 2,5 hours before departure? While probably most people check in online, there’s always a proportion of passengers checking in at the airport. So there was nobody without a pre-reserved seat checking in later than 2,5 hours before departure?
If the flight was oversold, which it well may have been, it hits the passengers without pre-reserved seats checking in last.
Sound dubious that 2,5 hours before this short haul intra-Schengen flight everybody else had already checked in.
Maybe the handling agent made a different mistake and IB found it easier to say, oh look sorry, we were oversold, rather than getting into a complicated discussion of what else might have gone wrong.
This 100%. I find it hard to believe that someone couldn't at least check in for their flight and get a seat number 2.5 hours before departure even if it was oversold. Something else was going on here.
Travelling the Monday after the Monza F1 to the Madrid F1, I imagine there'd be a lot of individuals in a similar boat. From subsequent videos he booked himself into Biz for the reroute, so presumably that what he was here as well. Not hard to imagine it was very full. And potentially if teams travelling, corporate check in handled many hours in advace by their travel coordinators for those up front.
The problem is not so much that they lied, it was handled by third parties and the original representative used a boilerplate response. The complaint then reached airline staff who knew what they were doing, therefore it was resolved.
The problem is companies choose to outsource their complaints centres to third parties who generally haven’t a clue and don’t investigate properly. I believe Iberia’s may be based in Bogota.
Another possible explanation is the contract agent was newer and didn't realize that IB uses Amadeus as their GDS but the PNR is made in both Amadeus (check-in system as well) and their internal system Resiber (Inventory control and houses their PNRs). The PNRs can get out of sync and the ticket must be manually attached to the PNR in Amadeus.
Hah.
GDS.
A system that's upgraded to perform well into 2050 but users are still using it like it's 1980.
Funny to see Kym described as a YouTuber and not a F1 photographer. I wonder what he'd think of that /s
I follow Kym for his F1 work, so this made me chuckle. I also find it rather bizarre, given how much Kym travels, that he did not book directly with IB.
My worlds are colliding here. After the fact it sounds like Kym may have had some treatment others may not be privy to, could that have helped? Kyms Iberia video has 150k views. Also is also a QF P1 I believe...
The check-in agent’s line about "Expedia needing to pay" is common industry shorthand, but it confuses payment with proof of payment—and hides how a dropped system deadline created an oversold flight.
Not ticketed doesn’t mean not paid.
To an airport check-in agent, a 13-digit e-ticket number attached to a booking code (a PNR) is the only digital proof of payment their departure system recognizes.
When an agent pulls up a PNR that lacks an e-ticket number, the system flags "no financial clearance." Front-line staff routinely translate "no ticket number linked" into "it wasn't paid for."
However, not ticketed ≠ not paid:
* Not Paid: Money was never collected.
* Not Ticketed: The customer paid, but the electronic proof (the 13-digit ticket number) hasn't been generated or linked to the booking yet.
Agents default to "not paid" because agencies like corporate desks holding tentative itineraries frequently create PNRs that expire without ever being ticketed.
Expedia doesn't do speculative holds, but their ticketing flow isn't always fast enough to beat the airline's system clock:
* The Inventory Hold: The moment you book on Expedia, Iberia’s system locks a seat under a strict Ticketing Time Limit (TTL)—an automated countdown timer requiring a ticket number to be generated before space is released.
* The Queue & The Expired TTL: Expedia places the order in an internal review queue. If nobody at Expedia monitors or catches the TTL countdown in time, the deadline passes.
* The Inventory Gap: The second the TTL expires without an e-ticket number, Iberia’s system automatically drops the hold and releases that seat back into the open pool. Because the flight is in high demand, another passenger immediately buys that newly released seat.
* The Late Issuance: Expedia eventually finishes its internal review and sends the electronic ticketing command. On Expedia's end, the system thinks the booking is complete—but on Iberia's end, the seat was already resold.
When the customer shows up at check-in, they have a paid Expedia receipt, but the agent scans a PNR with no active ticket coupon attached to a 100% full plane. The agent gives the lazy "Expedia didn't pay" excuse because the screen shows no financial clearance.
Iberia accepted IDB instead of fighting.
Expedia dropped the ball by missing the TTL deadline. However, major airlines and OTAs process millions of bookings under massive B2B credit agreements. Neither side wants to damage a multi-million-dollar distribution partnership over a fringe edge-case where an automated queue delay caused a dropped TTL on a full flight.
When Iberia’s back-office reviewed the file, they saw a customer turned away from a full plane on a booking where inventory had been legitimately requested. Rather than getting into a messy dispute with Expedia over who missed the deadline, Iberia simply treated it as a functional Involuntary Denied Boarding (IDB) and issued the statutory EC261 compensation.
Why Iberia refused to pay the taxi?
While Iberia was liable for the IDB on the original flight, the passenger opted to take a full refund and make independent arrangements—traveling to a different airport (Milan Linate) to buy a brand-new ticket on ITA Airways. Under EU passenger rights, once a traveler accepts a refund and opts out of the airline’s own re-routing, the airline’s "duty of care" ends. Ground transport for an entirely separate, self-booked journey falls outside Iberia’s legal liability.
The first part is possible but it's not possible for the passenger to "opt to take a full refund" when the airport agent denies the airline has any money to refund because Expedia allegedly kept it and he doesn't learn otherwise until much later.
It doesn’t say that the passenger “opted out” or “accepted the refund”. Also under EC261 the passenger is not restricted to “the airline’s own re-routing”. Rather the passenger is entitled to the earliest possible option, if he so chooses. The post mentions that a refund was issued and compensation was paid but for what it’s worth, it doesn’t even confirm that the replacement flight ticket was covered.
What is true is that you can’t have both a refund AND coverage of your alternative travel arrangement. It’s either or.
Pity, because I liked your explanation of the cause of the issue, because it can’t have been a simple overbooking situation. But unfortunately with the last two sentences you reveal that you’re not as knowledgeable as you want to appear.
Iberia, the airline of the lazy. They will do whatever is necessary to deny boarding and admittance of wrong doing until they cannot weasel out anymore.
The date on the Uber/Lyft/Dede receipts frequently differ from the ride date. This happens to me all the time.