Is my niece’s Greek odyssey standard airline practice?

Simon Calder talks overbooked flights, a new Egyptian route and renewing a passport at short notice

A late connection from ferry to plane made it a stressful journey from Athens (Getty/iStock)

Q My niece has endured an extremely stressful journey home from Greece. She was booked to fly from Athens to London Gatwick. Despite allowing plenty of time to reach the airport, the ferry had an engine problem and arrived over two hours late, which meant she missed the deadline for the flight.

She was able to book online for another flight to Heathrow at 1.30pm and received an email confirmation. But when she checked in immediately afterwards, she did not receive a seat number. At the gate she was told that the flight was overbooked and that she would have to wait to see if five people failed to appear. Is it normal procedure to put her last in line because she was a late booking? In the end, she was allowed on the flight. But what would have happened otherwise?

Sean K