Airlines cancelling flights

My to/from Vegas flights are nonstop. This helps with not minding delays since I don’t have to worry about missing a connection. Of course this only applies to my Vegas trip this weekend. Heading to Colorado in a few weeks and hoping for the best since we do have connections. Suffering with first flight of the day on the outbound (530am… ugh) and flying back on a Thursday hoping that might help somehow.

 

Delta is allowing travelers to change July 4th trip flights because of expected "difficulties."
https://news.delta.com/delta-gives-customers-option-change-flights-ahead-july-fourth-travel

 

Some of it is staffing issues brought on by crew members being out with covid.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1102322143/canceled-flights-memorial-day-weekend-peek-summer

Granted, if they were better staffed, the airlines could adjust better for such unforseen circumstances.

 

I have three trips coming up in the next several months. Two Southwest, one Delta, and watching them closely.

 

I saw that Delta cancelled yesterday's 1110a non-stop JFK-LAS: I am booked on that same itinerary for July 24; this made me a bit nervous; I just rebooked (no change fee and $160 eCredit) to the 8a non-stop; I didn't originally want to get up and leave that early from home ( I am 1h20 from JFK) but I figured this gives me more opportunity to get a reasonable flight out later that same day if a cancellation should occur...hope I did the right thing...

 

I received an email apology from the Delta CEO today about all the issues they've been having.
(Well a form letter to everyone in their database)

 

Exactly. And while issues with particular flights aren't always predictable, the overall pattern seems pretty clear at this point. It's not like they're doing all their planning with an abacus and a sheet of graph paper; you'd think they'd be able to model for this. And airline schedules being what they are, even a couple last-minute cancellations can create chaos for both the airlines and the customers.

 

I'm reminded again of the George Carlin bit: "Then they mention that it’s a non-stop flight. Well, I must say I don’t care for that sort of thing. Call me old-fashioned, but I insist that my flight stop. Preferably at an airport!"

 

Loved that routine...Evel Kinevel can get "on" the plane...I am going to get "in the plane"...etc....(fyi i recommend the hbo docu on GC well worth the watch)

 

Delta just emailed me and gave me 10k miles to make up for my cancelled flight. To recap:

Flight was cancelled
They rebooked me on a flight i did not want
I changed it for free myself to a flight transferring at LAX to a Delta One flight to JFK for no additional money
Now I got 10k free miles

 

Yesterday my Southwest Little Rock -> St Louis -> Milwaukee went off without a problem. Only about a 15 minute delay leaving St. Louis, and that was because the previous plane the gate was a little late so that inbound flight had to sit on the tarmac until the first one left.

 

Just got an email from AA doing the same thing. We're supposed to go to Boston via Regan International on Sunday. So far the weather looks ok in DC and Boston on Sunday but 60% thunderstorms in our departure airport here in VA. DC and VA have about 50% chance of thunderstorms on the day we fly home, Boston looks ok. Worse case is if we make it to DC coming home but get cancelled there, I can just rent a car and drive home. While I take the forecast seriously, most days in the summer have some thunderstorms in the forecast from VA all the way south to FL. Sometimes they happen and sometimes nothing...

https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/travel-alerts.jsp

Last night I made reservations at Borgata arriving Monday for 5 nights. If something goes haywire on our flight Sunday, I'm thinking we'll just drive to AC.

 

@Dean Martin Don't know if you saw but a contract was agreed to so no AC strike this weekend

Edit no Hard Rock deal yet

 

I've never been to AC before so don't normally follow what's going on there (although I should have been for next week) and didn't even know about a potential strike. Thanks for the info!

Also checked my flight and because I booked a "Web Special" it's not eligible for this weather related change change but I can cancel and get all the miles I used to purchase it reinstated.

 

I find it comical that the news and these airlines make such a big deal about how the airlines are allowing customers to change their cancelled/delayed flights for free!!! How nice of them to do that for us...

 

Anyone else habitually stalk flight aware? I’m not gonna lie… my flight is tomorrow afternoon but I’m already tracking my plane.

 

OMG, I thought I was the only one! My flight is 2 weeks out and I'm already tracking it every couple of days. LOL

 

I use Flight Radar 24.

 

Speaking of Flight Aware, they're showing this right now when you look up a flight to LAS, I don't know what it means, because it appears departures and arrivals are still occurring.

 

Yeah it’s a weird message because usually it will show a symbol next to the airport which would alert you to click through. However I only see this message if I click through. Probably a flight aware programmer who lurks these forums.