i almost lost my new job because of airline mistake

hi atty. good day! i need your help once again po. as you well know, i resigned from my old job and was supposed to start on my new job in makati today. i went home to bacolod though for the holidays last december 31. I bought a ticket from a travel agency back to manila for the 4th of january coz my new job starts on jan 5 at 7am. my ticket clearly stated that i am to depart at 9pm. i arrived at bacolod airport at around 7:30. the guard checked my ticket and pointed me to the check in counter for the 9pm flight. i queued there for a little over 30mins. within that span of time, i heard the final call for check in and final call for boarding for the 8:25pm flight. when it was my turn at the counter, they looked up by my name and told me my name wasnt on the manifest for the 9pm flight. they asked me to go to the ticket counter outside the airport. i did that and it took the xxxx ticketing agent around 20mins just to argue with me and look up my name to find out i was booked for the 8:25pm flight. i rushed back to the airport but the 8:25pm plane had already departed. at this point, the 9pm flight was already boarding. i spoke with the check in counter again and adviced her that they have to put me on the flight otherwise i'd lose my new job. she told me that the ticket i have is no good, and since the 8:25pm flight has departed, that they cant refund it as well coz its forfeited. she made me wait for her supervisor for another 20mins. by then the plane was on its way to manila. bottom line, because of their error. i lost the 3900.00 i paid for the ticket, got stranded in the airport coz that was the last flight, had to incur incidentals for my transport to hotel and hotel accomodations until i get a new flight and i got a bad record with the new company im gonna be working with. plus since i missed the first day of work, they had to move me to the next batch which wont start til the 19th of january which means, i will be a bum for about 15days instead of me getting my paycheck by the 20th had i started today. the money, stress and embarassment the airline company has caused me forced me to look into filing a case against them. can you advice me on what course of action i should take. should i demand them to pay me the damages first before i bring them to court, should i report them to the civil aeronautics board? what should i do atty? i need your help! Please advice. thanks in advance.

are you saying that your ticket states you are on the 9 pm flight but it was actually for the 8:25 flight? are you sure this is the fault of the airline or the ticketing agent?

your best action is a complaint for damages based on breach of contract of carriage. i recommend to you to send a demand letter first. i also would not file a complaint with more than P100,000 in damages so you can take advantage of the small claims rules and you can neutralize their use of lawyers. rules on sc.judiciary.gov.ph.

note that you will have to look up the company name of the airline. it's headquarters are based in cebu.

thanks for the reply atty. indeed, my ticket stated i am booked for the 9pm flight but their records show that i was booked for the 8:25pm flight. I can't really tell whose mistake it was though but one thing is for sure, I could still have boarded the 8:25 flight if only the check in agent looked up my name on their file instead of having me go outside of the airport to a ticketing office for them to look it up. she ended up doing it anyway and found i was indeed booked for the 8:25pm flight but the plane already left when she did it. They never called on my name over the paging system for the 8:25pm flight as well.

By the way, should i just email the demand letter to the airline company or via airmail? i also contacted the legal enforcement unit of the civil aeronautics board by the way and they told me i can email them a complaint letter against the airline as well. should i send a demand letter and file a complaint thru cab too? or should i just do the former instead before doing anything else? does the demand letter need to be notarized or should it be written by an attorney? thanks again for your help. this site has helped me a lot!

another thing atty, what amount is reasonable to demand? should i include the benefits and salary that i should have received if only i had started on the 5th?

atty, i also came up with an article wherein a case was filed against the said airline but it got dismissed coz they say that they are using a different company name. should i address the demand letter to their president/ceo instead? thanks again

the cab will try to mediate between you and the airline company. i doubt it will directly resolve the situation by ruling who is correct. if you are able to present your case clearly enough, they may offer you a settlement.

you can have the judicial small claim as your second step. i recommend going to the CAB first.