Can This Trip Be Saved: I Got Stuck in Airport Security!
by John Hawks

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As a result, my clients arrived at their departure gate 10 minutes after their flight left. Despite their explanations about the security snafus, however, the airline's gate agent refused to re-book them on a different flight. They were allowed to fly standby, but they could not secure two seats together until the last flight of the day from that airport. Did the airline treat them fairly?

Answer: With these situations, there's the standard answer -- and then there's the "it depends" answer.

The standard answer, in strict legal terms, is that fairness is not the issue. Rather, every major U.S. airline puts the responsibility on passengers to arrive at departing airports in plenty of time to clear security checkpoints and arrive at the departing gate (boarding passes in hand) a minimum amount of time before the flight's posted departure time. Yes, your clients were not technically at fault for being delayed at the security checkpoint -- but the truth is that, if they had left the house a half hour earlier, they would have allowed enough time in their schedules to clear security even with the unexpected delays.

Now, here's the "it depends" part of the answer. When major airport security problems develop -- e.g., screeners discover that a passenger actually walked through the checkpoint without being scanned or searched, forcing the shutdown of a terminal or the re-screening of all passengers -- then all bets are off. In these situations, it's routine for the airlines operating from that terminal to reaccommodate passengers who were delayed as a result.

The bottom line? Even if your clients are extremely experienced travelers, they should allow a minimum of two hours (domestic flights) or three hours plus (international flights) to arrive at the airport, clear security, and make it to their gates ahead of time. This habit will grow especially important for trips during the upcoming year-end holidays, since more passengers are checking more luggage nowadays and airlines have cut back so far on capacity that it's tougher to find substitute flights if your clients miss their existing bookings due to these types of delays.