letour

I wrote last month about Air France, which cancelled a flight I had booked last May two weeks before the departure date in December. Some Fodorites wrote back and said that airlines cancel flights with some frequency, and that's just part of the modern-day, air travel experience. A friend told me yesterday that her flight to Argentina was cancelled recently, but she balked, and somehow--she can't remember how--they essentially reconstructed her flight to get her to Argentina on time.

In looking at an upcoming international flight with Delta, I called them this morning to ask what their record was of cancelling flights. The operator there said that US carriers do not typically cancel flights as they would face fines for doing so. I am not sure if he was stipulating strictly domestic flights or not, but he said that Delta does not make a practice of cancelling flights.

Any thoughts/similar experiences? Are people discovering that their flights are being cancelled? Is there a distinction between international flights and domestic ones in this regard?

letour

ira

Hi L,

Flights are cancelled all the time.

It's up to you to get the airline to make other arrangements to get you to/fro.

Otherwise they will just give you your money back.

Sometimes they apologize.

Judy

We've had many flights changed but I can't remember having one actually cancelled.....maybe it was cancelled and I just didn't notice that the reschedule was a different flight.
I always expect some changes as we tend to book early, especially with FF flights.

W9London

I got an impression that BA is prone to cancelling some of JFK-LHR flights. This has never bothered me as they have 6 or 7 evening flights out of JFK and they're hardly overbooked, so it's just a matter of catching the next one an hour or so later. Often the excuse is mechanical troubles, though I suspect it's just to increase passenger yield by consolidating two half-empty flights.

kerouac

It is pretty hard for major airlines to cancel a flight for revenue reasons, because even if they don't have many passengers, the plane has to go to the destination to bring other passengers back. But many of the airlines are bursting at the seams due to so many economical internet bookings. If just one plane is cancelled for mechanical reasons, it can cause a chain reaction in the whole system, especially airlines which use their planes more than 15 hours a day, as more and more are doing with rapid turnarounds.

One of the most amazing airlines of olden times was UTA (absorbed by Air France in 1990). It covered most of Africa, flew the route Paris-LAX-Tahiti as well as Paris-Singapore-Australia, and yet it only had 16 planes, which flew an average of 18 hours a day. Whenever anything went wrong, it screwed up the whole schedule.

lemidi

All airlines cancel flights even US domestic flights so I am unsure what Delta meant. Most times when a flight is cancelled the passengers are not aware because another flight (flight number or time) is substituted. Generally with domestic flight there are multiple flights to most destinations throughout the day so one is not aware of the change. When it is a transatlantic flight with only one or two departures the change is more obvious and can be quite disruptive when it happens. When it happens to us it feels like it is only our airline and it is the worst airline at the moment. One of the trials of travelling that we must be prepared for.

Tiff

<<Sometimes they apologize.>>

LOL, so true. (emphasis on sometimes)

Yes, letour, our flight was cancelled last year. Luckily I was checking often and already had a "backup plan" so when I noticed the flight was gone, I called NWA and was quickly on my Plan B flight before it filled up.

What my observation has been is that we often (not always, but often) book our overseas flights many months in advance so the flights often change and yes, sometimes cancel.

When I book a flight here it is rarely that far in advance so the flights don't change that much for us if we are flying within the US.

Just my observation.

Regardless I always stay on top of booked flights and check often for status.

Nikki

Last week my daughter flew from Denver to Boston on United. The flight had been changed to an earlier time with no notice. I'm not sure whether her flight was canceled or changed. She missed the flight and had to wait three hours for the next one. From now on, she'll be checking in on line before leaving for the airport.

lemidi

I forgot to mention that there is or used to be a "law" for domestic flights that an airline could cancel or change a flight up until 72 hours before the flight. Within 72 hours a flight could not be changed or cancelled unless for mechanical or weather issues. This is why it is so important to reconfirm within 72 hours.

twk

If you schedule a long time in advance, and have multiple connections, there's a fair chance that the airline will revamp its schedule between the time you book and the time you fly. I had US Air do this for the domestic leg of a planned trip to Scotland. They rescheduled the flights without telling me when they rearranged their schedule of flights between PHL and DFW, but when I checked up on my itinerary a month before departure, I caught the change, and was able to get them to further modify the itinerary to a more convenient connecting flight.

Bottom line: When booking flights well in advance, it's a good idea to check your itinerary with the airline periodically, particularly if you can do so online.

Tiff

That is a good observation, twk. Our flights did get better when the change occured.

Oh, except for the part where we "had" to remain in Italy an extra day.

Dukey

No airline will admit that they "typically cancel flights" but I think there are many of us who have witnessed the cancellation of a flight "for mechanical reasons" and wondered about it.

I recently made a reservation witrh Air France directly for a dometic flight in France; it is for this coming July. You can bet i will be periodically checking back to see if there have been schedule changes. However sometimes those decisions are made on the day of travel and you don't find out about it until you get to check-in.

I wish someone like MorganB who has done such as outstanding job on the intricacies of SNCF site use would publish a list of the rules that govern these things.

Personally, I think THAT would be an invaluable addition and resource and we have a couple of self-professed "experts" here who might just be able to do it.

demory

letour,I booked a christmas time trip to England back in April for our family. Delta not only cancelled one of our domestic flights to Atlanta, but cancelled our flight to London and booked us on an earlier flight that left Atlanta 30 minutes before the domestic flight got there. luckily I had checked within that 72 hour period and they worked it out.

ira

Hi twk,

>there's a fair chance that the airline will revamp its schedule between the time you book and the time you fly.<

So true.

I purchased tickets in August for May, 2007.

Ao far the schedule has been changed 3 times - only by a few minutes each time.

However, each time they changed the schedule we lost our seats.

You have to check often.

kerouac

Ira, why would you check often when the trip is so far away? I would check only in the last month before the flight if the schedule changes so often.

Clifton

I think they can do just about anything...

Year before last, we had an AA flight that connected to a Qantas flight at LAX. One ticket bought about 4 months ahead through AA.com - they're partners. There were three flights from St. Louis to LA. The middle one got us in with about 2.5 hours to connect. The earlier one had a 10.5 hour layover and the later one left just an hour for the connect (entering the international terminal through security can be unpredictable). So we figured we were doing pretty well.

Then a month prior, AA cancels our flight. Not the first time. We're left with the earlier or later... we pick the later, then in the next few days, they move the arrival time later and later until there's no way we could make it. We finally and grudgingly switch to the 10.5 layover.

We check with a couple of days left and notice that our original flight is back. And sold out now. Must have went back up right after we'd switched to the early flight. AA wouldn't put us on that plane, period. I still think to this day they used the prime flight time to lure people in, shuffled them all off to the flights they weren't having as much luck in selling, then resold the good inventory. But I couldn't prove it...

I think sometimes people work off of instinct about these things, right or wrong.

Clifton

last line meaning - people are sometimes forced to draw their own conclusions about what's going on. I think most of us have been in situations where someone from the airline is looking you right in the eye and telling you something that is patently not true.

ira

Hi kerouac
>Ira, why would you check often when the trip is so far away? I would check only in the last month before the flight...<

Because you lose your seats each time they change.

If you wait that long, you could end up with two middle seats.

ltilley

We reserved our March 2007 tickets in May 2006 because we were using frequent flier miles.

Our iteneray has changed at least four times... the last change costing us dough... here's why:

We're staying in Lucerne, an hour away from Zurich and flying out of Zurich. Our original flight was leaving at 11:30am - plety of time to take the train to Zurich. They changed the flight to leave at 7:30am... and there aren't any trains early enough to get to zurich by 5:30am (two hours before the flight). So now we have to get a car service to take us there - $300. UGH!

altamiro

>So now we have to get a car service to take us there - $300.

Why not simply stay in Zürich for the last night? It will be much cheaper than a "car service" and easier on you, too.