Tag Archives for trip cancellation.
More than a third of U.S. departing flights were already canceled today, with Washington and New York airports effectively wiped out and Philadelphia near total shutdown. It’s not a record—pandemic-era schedule cuts were even worse—but the airline-by-airline data shows how quickly cancellations are cascading, and Monday’s schedule is already starting to unravel too.
The new government rule is less generous than United’s and Delta’s policy used to be, but better than American’s policy.
So I was worried – correctly, it turns out – that the DOT rule might cause United and Delta to revert to the government’s less generous standard, leaving many passengers worse off. Oh, and automatic refunds are slow refunds.
Delta is the most on-time U.S. airline followed by Alaska and then American. Frontier and JetBlue are rock bottom.
Cancellations tell a different story of reliability.
A Marriott Bonvoy member writes about a recent award redemption experience – a flight delay caused them to miss the first night of their award stay, so they got the free night certificate back and the hotel charged them cash for the missed night. They were fortunate the cash amount was only $153. I’ve seen it as high as $2000.
One of the major drawbacks of the ‘low cost carriers’ has been that they didn’t set up the ability to put you on another airline when your flight cancels. However Spirit Airlines and Frontier, which are merging, have been flipping the script. And Frontier may have the best cancelled flight approach of any airline now.
It’s easy to rage at an airline on social media. But unless your tweet goes super viral it’s not likely to get you much. Better to take ownership of the situation yourself. Here’s 9 ways to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
Anti-customer policies adopted under the mantra of self-preservation are no longer necessary. It’s time to revert to pre-pandemic refund rules. A three hour flight change means not giving customers what they paid for, and passengers should be entitled to their money back.
The true test of character comes when you’re staring into the abyss and you see what stares back at you. Ethics rarely come into play when they don’t cost you anything.
Airlines revealed their true character during the pandemic. Many airlines around the world stole their customers’ money, and argued it was justified because they needed it.
Delta cancelled 67 flights on Christmas Eve day. They had already cancelled 123 flights on Christmas Day, or 10% of their schedule, by 6 a.m. on the East Coast. In contrast American Airlines had cancelled only one flight.
This follows an operational meltdown over Thanksgiving.
By 9 a.m. this morning Delta Air Lines had cancelled over 80 flights today, on what’s expected to be the busiest travel day since March. There are even more cancellations tomorrow. So far FlightAware appears to be tracking over 420 Delta cancellations throughout the holiday weekend.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
