Originally Posted by
c130jbloke
I find it difficult to believe that passengers have no recourse should a carrier cannot adhere to their schedule.
Unfortunately, schedules are not guaranteed - and all airlines state this very clearly. As Middle Seat says, if they held one ticket for both parts of the journey, then they should not have been made to pay again as the airlines are required to put right the schedule problem by reaccommodating them on another flight.
But if you choose to buy two separate tickets (which people often do because they find it's cheaper), then neither airline is legally responsible for making sure that you make your connection. The misconnect is at your own risk, if you choose to buy your tickets like that; delays are a fact of life and you just have to organise the travel with fatter connection margins to allow for them. If two separate tickets are cheaper, then it's your choice whether to take the cheaper fare and run the risk, or to pay the higher through fare and relax in the reassurance that it provides.
That said, I'm a little bit disappointed that SK insisted on them buying new tickets - even though they were within their rights to do so. A two-hour delay into OSL is significant, and SK would have been able to check the truth of that on the spot. And big airlines will often waive the technical restrictions if you have a problem on the day, and they can reaccommodate you without problems.
As an example, two friends went to the US last week on BA. When they got to the airport, one could not be checked-in because he did not have a machine-readable passport and needed one. So they had to get a new passport. BA had no problem arranging for them for travel on the next day's flight, despite the cheapie tickets that they were on - there was space, and it helped them out.
So you might also try an approach to SK to see whether they'd refund the cost of the tickets, or issue travel vouchers to be used in the future or something like that.