”Finnair” is dangerous⁉︎ Twice bad flight change

In this article, I would like to introduce a difficult case of "Finnair" that I experienced.

This time, I booked a round-trip flight from Hungary to Japan through Finnair's official website.

It was a bit difficult to communicate and go through the procedures, so I would like to introduce an actual case I experienced and how I solved it.

(I don't know if these problems occur on a daily basis. It could be due to the Coronavirus or the war between Russia and Ukraine).

I got an Impossible flight change...

I got a notice of an unbelievable flight change.

I know that flight time changes are a fairly common occurrence when booking international flights.

But the flight change from "Finnair" was not an ordinary one at that time.

And it happened not once, but twice.

So I'll let you know them one by one.

The flight I booked was a round-trip flight from "Hungary to Finland to Haneda(Japan) to Kumamoto(Japan)".

1st flight change "Change back in time"

The first change is, what a "Change back in time".

Here it is↓.

Impossible flight

This is the actual notification of the changes received by e-mail.

The flight was changed to depart from Kumamoto on the 19th, but Haneda was changed to depart on the 18th.

”How am I supposed to catch a flight from Tokyo?

"Let's go back in time."

I thought, "No, I can't do that, what am I going to do...".

So I just waited if another change will come. (The email notifying me of the flight change said that I should either accept this flight change or go through the flight change procedure, but I hold off.)

Then, after waiting a couple more weeks in this state, I received another email.

"Oh, you noticed the mistake, good, good, good."

But that feeling of relief quickly turned to anxiety.

Second flight change, "Need an anywhere door"

The "order" of boarding changed.

The first place of departure changed to Haneda for some reason, and the connection changed to Kumamoto.

Even the order of the booked flights has changed.

The return flight had to depart from "Kumamoto", but somehow it departed from "Haneda" and arrived in "Finland". The next flight was from "Kumamoto" to "Haneda". And finally from "Finland" to "Hungary".

The order is all messed up.

The notification email also stated that, as in the first case, you should either accept our flight change or go through the flight change procedure.

But it was obviously not right, so I decided to wait and see again....

However, I decided to contact the customer center, as I had been waiting for a long time and it seemed that I would not be notified of a new flight change, and my anxiety was only increasing.

So, what follows is how to deal with such a sudden, or rather, obviously unnatural and strange flight change. (I wonder if anyone else has experienced such an unreasonable, or who would have thought change?)

Procedures are available on the Finnair website

If you made a reservation through "Finnair's official website", you can contact customer service through here.

This is the procedure.

However, there are some points to note, so I will let you know them one by one, showing the screen of the procedure.

If you can solve the problem with the chatbot's questions and answers, that's OK.

In my case, I did not want to change my flight, but I wanted Finnair to correct a mistake, so I asked a human to take over from the chatbot.

１　Open the Website

You can jump to Finnair's official homepage here.

You will see a small "Chat" in the lower right corner, so click there.

２　Click on the "chat" button in the lower right corner to interact with the AI

Click "Chat with us"

Then click on "Chat with us" as shown in the image above.

Then, the personal information input screen shown above will appear.

If you enter your "reservation number," the exchange will proceed smoothly when it is later passed on to a human.

After this, you interact with the AI chatbot.

If this can solve the problem, that's OK.

In my case, however, I wanted to say, "Isn't there something wrong with Finnair's flight change?", so I asked to connect with the person.

３　Communicate with a person in a chat format (English).

After connecting with a human supporter, we had to communicate in "English.

It took about an hour for them to look up flight information and suggest new flights, and for me to check the flights and somehow reply in English.

But they were relatively kind and helpful.

However, you should be careful in dealing with people.

Note: They say "I'm busy" and won't connect me to a human being.

I waited for a long time but...

I selected "connect to human" and here is the answer that came.

"..."

I did a lot of conversations but I have no choice but to retry again.

At least, they should have said, "Please wait a moment!"

After waiting for a few hours, the chatbot responded in the same way, "We are busy right now, please contact us later. You can close the chat."

So after being told that you can close it, II did not close and I posted more.

Better to post more if you are on urgent

Finally, I could connect with a person

超シンプル英語「I want to talk to a human.」

文法合ってるかすらよくわかりませんが、とりあえずこちらの意思と危機感を伝えました。

そこで届いた返事をまとめるとこんな感じ。↓

Just I said, "I want to talk to a human."

I conveyed my intention and sense of urgency.

Here is the summary of the reply I received. And then I got this message in the picture.

So I responded with a quick "Yes".

If I contacted them again later, I would probably get the same reply.

Then I got the following comment.

Finally, I could get to a human supporter

The wait was only five minutes.

A human supporter responded immediately.

The English communication made it difficult to understand some parts, but with the help of translation, I managed to get the flight back to normal!

End...

In this article, I introduced Finnair's impossible flight change and how I dealt with it.

In my case, I was lucky that I had time before my flight, but if I had not, I would have been in a great hurry.

It is important to "get connected to a human being" as soon as possible.