Just out of curiosity, what are the passenger rights / airline obligations concerning missed connections if, say, an airline does not provide adequate time between connections, especially if it's all on the same airline? After all, it is the airline that assigns these connections. Passengers do not select individual flight segments.
Update: Answering my own question, I found this document from the London-based Air Transport Users Council:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=h...tions%2520.pdf
In it, it states:
The new rules under Regulation EC 261/2004 have been good news for passengers because they protect them from being out of pocket following a cancellation or delay to their flight or if they are denied boarding. But they do not generally protect them from expenses that they might incur if they miss their connection.
Under an International Air Transport Association (IATA) Resolution, that is binding on member airlines (most network carriers), the “forwarding air carrier” should provide refreshments and hotel accommodation to passengers who miss their connection when connecting from one IATA airline to another.
But the Resolution does not apply if passengers are connecting between two flights of the same airline. Then, it is up to the airline whether it arranges and pays for meals and hotel accommodation.
and then concludes by saying:
...advising passengers with through tickets about what they should expect if they miss their connection is less easy. For connections from one IATA airline to another, passengers should expect to be rebooked onto the next available flight and be offered assistance while they wait. For connections between two flights of the same airline, it is hard to know what to expect because airlines generally don’t commit their policies to print.
We have recently surveyed a number of airlines about their policies on missed connections. Most of the airlines we talked to said that they would usually provide assistance to passengers connecting between two of their flights. But they did not include this in their Conditions of Carriage.
So I guess the take-away is that if you are concerned about connections, choose through tickets using two different IATA airlines. Then you have the best chance of being taken care of properly if you miss a connection.
This raises another question in my mind. What if you in fact book a through ticket on two "different" airlines only to find out they are code shared and both operated by only one of them. Does the two airline rule still apply?