Airline capacity reductions vs cruising return

[PelicanBill]

Airlines, and Amtrak are reducing their capacity and schedules drastically.

 

I had reservations on Amtrak round-trip Rochester - New Orleans for cruise in late February out of New Orleans.  Amtrak canceled my trains and no longer offers a viable route so now we will fly.  and...

 

I have plans to fly to Orlando in October.  Southwest has canceled ALL morning flights from Rochester NY for the future.  They actually canceled my flight and moved me to an afternoon flight to Baltimore, leaving my morning flight from Baltimore to Orlando!  duh. I have to travel the night before and add a hotel night now.  But over on the Disney discussion board, there are dozens of reports of people's flights being canceled.

 

I have to believe this will create difficulty with delivering people to ports especially those who want to travel same day.  Anyone else with future cruise plans already impacted by air or train cancellations?

[roger001]

I imagine these cuts would have already happened had it not been for the required stay until after Sept.  I see American, following the end of that Sept requirement will furlough 2,000 pilots and terminate a total of 40,000 employees.  So non efficient routes will be cancelled, as I guess the distant schedules are already showing.  Yea, I had a SWA flight BNA to LAX booked in Sept.  That flight was cancelled, and I was rebooked on one that went from non stop to a 11 hour trip.  I cancelled the trip.  

[dexddd]

Delta plans to layoff 2,000+ pilots too.  Their release made mention of the action unless more bailout dollars came their way.

 

The other real issue that really hasn't been talked about much here  (same for the OP coming from far away) for us sailing as family of four, our costs to get to ship and back require air, hotel, food, and transportation to port.  All of that costs more than the entry level cruise fare but since we sail typically in suites, it is still a sizable amount.  The issue comes in with the risk of getting denied boarding if a pre-boarding test comes back positive - all of that money to get to port and back is down the drain.

 

Who wants to risk that?

[GA Dave]

American is completely eliminating service to 15 cities.  And, in nine of those cities, American was the only service.

 

AA Cuts

Edited August 27, 2020 by GA Dave

[CruiserBruce]

February is a long time from now in this era...many, many things could happen. In our lives, we have gone from long time ahead planners to much more last minute, because of the changes that are occuring, and have been occurring since March. That is the time we live in.

[Tapi]

The month of August was particularly challenging for the airlines (not to undermine how challenging everything has been since the pandemic started). Many airlines had planned on reinstating thousands of flights for the month of August expecting for passengers to return based on an uptick during the summer months. But then they realized that the recovery was much slower than they predicted. The result was that approximately 50% of the newly added flights were removed from the schedules short notice. 
 

During the upcoming months, you shouldn’t see as many last minute cancellations or drastic changes, but you can still expect some cancellations. Unfortunately we are nowhere near done with this pandemic, and last minute changes to travel plans should be something that those wishing to travel must take into account. 
 

We live in Georgia, and my next cruise was supposed to be a Mexican Riviera cruise on Princess out of Los Angeles in 2021. In order to minimize the possibility of disruptions, I have instead booked an MSC cruise from Port Canaveral (within driving distance for us). Not my first choice, and I won’t be devastated if it doesn’t happen, but I’d rather keep it simple until I see some real signs of recovery in the travel industry. 

[BirdTravels]

On 8/27/2020 at 8:59 AM, roger001 said:

I imagine these cuts would have already happened had it not been for the required stay until after Sept.  I see American, following the end of that Sept requirement will furlough 2,000 pilots and terminate a total of 40,000 employees.  So non efficient routes will be cancelled, as I guess the distant schedules are already showing.  Yea, I had a SWA flight BNA to LAX booked in Sept.  That flight was cancelled, and I was rebooked on one that went from non stop to a 11 hour trip.  I cancelled the trip.  

Airlines have been using government funds to pay employees to sit at home and not work since March. Now that the government funding is expiring, all of those employees are being let go and less profitable routes removed. On routes that I fly, non-stop flights are being eliminated (because of profitability) and forcing travelers to travel through major hubs. I was on two AA flights last week which were totally sold out. Every seat on the plane was taken with mask-wearing passengers. 

[PelicanBill]

4 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

Airlines have been using government funds to pay employees to sit at home and not work since March. Now that the government funding is expiring, all of those employees are being let go and less profitable routes removed. On routes that I fly, non-stop flights are being eliminated (because of profitability) and forcing travelers to travel through major hubs. I was on two AA flights last week which were totally sold out. Every seat on the plane was taken with mask-wearing passengers. 

Ouch.  That's another thing.  When flights are booked full, it can be impossible to get another flight.  We were flying Delta on a Thursday evening for a Saturday cruise in Port Canaveral.  Connection in Atlanta, of course, where there were thunderstorms. Flights were delayed for hours.  Finally they gave up and canceled our flight and we waited in line for rebooking.  "I can get you there Tuesday!" she cheerfully declared.  I managed not to laugh out loud, or worse.  I calmly said we'd like a refund and our luggage right away so we could start driving, since we had two days to get there for a cruise on Saturday.

 

She asked us to wait a few minutes.  Then called us up a asked for our boarding passes, and handed us new ones, and said get on the last flight that is boarding now.  You might only get as far as Atlanta tonight, but you will have a lot better chance to get to Orlando from there in two days. And you have two days for your luggage to catch up to you.

 

It DID work out.  Our calm and polite attitude worked in our favor!