Heads up if you are flying Delta Airlines to FLL for Cruises in next couple months.

[terrydtx]

Heads up on anyone who is flying on Delta Airlines for FLL cruises over next couple of months. Delta has made some major changes to flights across the country this morning. Both our flight to Ft Lauderdale and home to San Antonio were changed. The flight changes coming home were unacceptable to us and I just got off the phone with Flights by Celebrity to have them changed to ones that are acceptable. If you booked directly with Delta you need to contact Delta if any changes are not acceptable. Delta has changed the flight schedules from FLL to Atlanta which could effect your return flights.

[Jim_Iain]

Thanks for sharing.   Mine changed but only by 15 minutes so OK with it but I instantly went to by Delta App to check.  

 

I have had it happen before an luckily Delta changed it to a flight I originally wanted but was originally 2x the price at no cost.  

[terrydtx]

1 minute ago, Jim_Iain said:

Thanks for sharing.   Mine changed but only by 15 minutes so OK with it but I instantly went to by Delta App to check.  

 

I have had it happen before an luckily Delta changed it to a flight I originally wanted but was originally 2x the price at no cost.  

When Delta made the change they had us leaving FLL at 3:18pm and not getting home until 11:10. We originally had a 1:46 departure that got us home at 8:56. Celebrity Air got us changed to 12:05pm departure getting home at 5:15, the flight we originally wanted but was $400 more pp for first class. We got or original fare of $596 and the change to the more expensive flight and still in FC.

[davekathy]

@terrydtx thanks for the heads up. No matter the airlines I routinely (always) check to see if there has been any changes right up the day we are flying. Delta has always be good with sending me an email concerning flight changes and the flights/times. If what they pick won't work for us I call and the agents have always accommodate us with flights that do. Even if the flights cost more. Now only if they would upgrade us to first class for free. 😉

Edited July 24, 2021 by davekathy

[Denny01]

Yup terry I know all airlines are adjusting as they add aircraft and aircrew back on; I’ve got a number of changes by especially Delta with multiple changes each flight. Some are as reported, 10-15min, others are complete changes in code and depart/arrivals. had to make the calls too. 

 

Isn’t it great to be posting about actual issues that relate to cruising! Love it. 

 

Den

Edited July 24, 2021 by Denny01

[blueboro]

Our Southwest flights to and from FLL were changed.  Both were quite significant changes so Delta not alone.

[maggie.1008]

So frustrating with airline changes right now. I have 8 flights booked with Alaska Airlines this summer and fall, 7 of the flights have been changed or cancelled. Alaska is still my favorite airline and I do feel for the phone agents that have to deal with all these changes and unhappy passengers. 

[zitsky]

It's easy to ignore these emails when they are 15 min.  Then when one is 2 hours, it's easy to miss!  I guess you have to watch carefully.

[Turtles06]

2 minutes ago, zitsky said:

It's easy to ignore these emails when they are 15 min.  Then when one is 2 hours, it's easy to miss!  I guess you have to watch carefully.

Even worse is when no e-mail is sent at all. Pre-pandemic, United did that to us a number of times.  I regularly check all our flights. 

[ipeeinthepool]

3 hours ago, terrydtx said:

Heads up on anyone who is flying on Delta Airlines for FLL cruises over next couple of months. Delta has made some major changes to flights across the country this morning. Both our flight to Ft Lauderdale and home to San Antonio were changed. The flight changes coming home were unacceptable to us and I just got off the phone with Flights by Celebrity to have them changed to ones that are acceptable. If you booked directly with Delta you need to contact Delta if any changes are not acceptable. Delta has changed the flight schedules from FLL to Atlanta which could effect your return flights.

 

Just out of curiosity, how did you find out about the change?  Did Celebrity Air or Delta contact you?

Edited July 24, 2021 by ipeeinthepool

[wrk2cruise]

I've never had SWA change flights on me before, I thought they were better at it since they don't do their schedules out so far.    Just got a notice that our 11:05 non stop FLL to RDU was changed to 2 something to BWI connecting to RDU arriving at after 11 pm.

 

I went online and changed it to the 5:15 non stop which is better but now have to figure out what to do for the day in FLL.

[ExArkie]

9 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

Just out of curiosity, how did you find out about the change?  Did Celebrity Air or Delta contact you?

I'm not involved in this Delta schedule change, but have been in many before. Several years ago, they would send me an e-mail about every schedule change when it occurred, even if a flight time moved by only a few minutes and more than once when the only thing that changed was the flight number. At some point, they started just letting me know about major shifts in timing (30+ minutes) and ignoring the smaller ones. Recently, I've not been getting e-mail notifications on any discernable pattern. Not sure how it works for everyone else, but maybe they think I ought to have it figured out by now (roughly 3 million miles accumulated on Delta...in addition to about a million on United, perhaps I may have flown too much when I was working full time).

 

Delta is not the only airline that does this, but they are maybe the one with the most frequent changes. For future reference, Delta typically adjusts their schedules on Saturday, occasionally and infrequently on other days of the week. For years, my approach has been to spend a little time every Sunday morning reviewing flight schedules for booked tickets. Kind of a pain, but I'm rarely surprised by schedule changes these days.

 

For the record, Delta has always been great about accommodating what I want when the schedule changes. Often, one can adjust the flights on their Web page (the app sometimes doesn't handle this well), but you may have to call to fix it. 

 

 

[Host Anne]

Terrydtx ~ thanks for posting the heads up!  It's very important information.

 

All airlines are currently doing this, not just Delta.  We fly regularly for business (started back in June) and I have at least five or six more flights scheduled this year.  All but one have already had changes.  They are happening so frequently now that it's hard to keep up with.  Our staff, booked on a variety of airlines have had changes recently.  So much so that I've asked everyone to check their flights once a week as the changes do not always work.

 

For my flight back from St. Maarten at the end of our Summit cruise in August was changed by Delta.  We were supposed to fly home the day we disembarked (Saturday).  They moved our flights to Friday (the day before disembarkation).  Obviously that wasn't going to work.  Our connecting flight in Atlanta was cancelled altogether so it was either spend another night and the next day in St. Maarten or fly to Atlanta and stay overnight there.  

 

It may be frustrating but the airlines are struggling to keep up with demand as air travel has increased significantly.  This goes from the customer service people that answer their phones to gate agents to flight attendants and pilots.  

 

Patience (which has never been a strong suit of mine) is definitely my 2021 word of the year.  I really try to be sympathetic to all those working under stressful conditions and that includes the airlines.  I always thank them for working given the shortage of staffing in all businesses.

 

Bottom line, make a note on your calendar to check flights every week and when you are close to flying (perhaps the week before), check them every day.

 

 

[Turtles06]

3 minutes ago, ExArkie said:

For future reference, Delta typically adjusts their schedules on Saturday, occasionally and infrequently on other days of the week. 

Useful info, thanks. Any idea when United makes schedule adjustments?  Thanks. 

[zitsky]

The Delta flights for my canceled cruise just disappeared.  I think one out of four is the same.  Well see what happens next year since I booked for 2022.

[ipeeinthepool]

4 minutes ago, ExArkie said:

I'm not involved in this Delta schedule change, but have been in many before. Several years ago, they would send me an e-mail about every schedule change when it occurred, even if a flight time moved by only a few minutes and more than once when the only thing that changed was the flight number. At some point, they started just letting me know about major shifts in timing (30+ minutes) and ignoring the smaller ones. Recently, I've not been getting e-mail notifications on any discernable pattern. Not sure how it works for everyone else, but maybe they think I ought to have it figured out by now (roughly 3 million miles accumulated on Delta...in addition to about a million on United, perhaps I may have flown too much when I was working full time).

 

Delta is not the only airline that does this, but they are maybe the one with the most frequent changes. For future reference, Delta typically adjusts their schedules on Saturday, occasionally and infrequently on other days of the week. For years, my approach has been to spend a little time every Sunday morning reviewing flight schedules for booked tickets. Kind of a pain, but I'm rarely surprised by schedule changes these days.

 

For the record, Delta has always been great about accommodating what I want when the schedule changes. Often, one can adjust the flights on their Web page (the app sometimes doesn't handle this well), but you may have to call to fix it. 

 

 

 

Flying out of Detroit I'm  very familiar with Delta schedule and equipment changes and I agree with you they have always been very accommodating in making adjustments.  I've never dealt with Celebrity Air and I was wondering how good they were in identifying changes.  In this case Celebrity air is the TA and I would hope they would notify you about any changes.

[terrydtx]

29 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

Just out of curiosity, how did you find out about the change?  Did Celebrity Air or Delta contact you?

Email from Celebrity Air, nothing from Delta yet.

[ipeeinthepool]

Just now, terrydtx said:

Email from Celebrity Air, nothing from Delta yet.

 

Thanks, I would hope that you would have heard from them.  Glad it worked out for you.

[terrydtx]

10 minutes ago, Host Anne said:

We were supposed to fly home the day we disembarked (Saturday).  They moved our flights to Friday (the day before disembarkation).  Obviously that wasn't going to work

According to Celebrity Air, Delta is famous for doing this.  We had a Delta flight going to Barcelona for our canceled cruise in September that Delta made changes to before the cancelation. They had us booked coming home from Barcelona the day before we were supposed to dock.

[GeorgiaPeach51]

I will also add that if your flight is changed, especially if the type of aircraft changes, you need to check your seating assignments.  This happened pre-Covid, but we booked very early for seats on a long flight to Buenos Aires, just so we could have two seats on the side, rather than in the middle of a row of five.

 

When Delta changed the flight time they also changed the type of plane and that changed us to ...guess where....seats in that dreaded middle.  We squawked about it and after going around and around finally got back to what we had originally for seat location but with different row and seat assignments.

 

so just beware and check your seat assignments....they appeared to be exactly the same seats, same row.  Only in checking the aircraft layout did we discover the swiitcheroo.

 

if it was for a shorter flight, maybe even cross country, we would probably just go with it, but absolutely not on a long haul.

[sanger727]

Delta has always did a lot of flight changes but they were normally in the 5-15 minute range. Lately I think all the airlines are doing massive changes with inconsistent travel demand. We have an international trip coming up. Our delta flights have changed quite a bit but not enough for us to want to revise them. Still basically the same concept. A full day flight going there, and overnight flight coming back.  We are landing a lot later than planned, but it is Covid era after all…. Our non-delta flight switched from a morning nonstop to an evening connecting flight and we did go in and have to change that. The whole point of the morning flight was to leave time for delays. 

[NMTraveller]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

Due to a 28 hour flight delay (multiday) on Southwest last week I have rebooked all of my Southwest to Delta flights for my going to the cruise ports.  

 

Southwest is the absolute worst.  They had 2600 flight cancellations in June.  Delta had 100.  Southwest is on track to make another 2600 flight cancellations this month.  In other words they are a hot chocolate mess in a flaming dumpster.  This week alone I had 8 flight cancellation from Southwest which took two hours to get rebooked on the AList line.  Having flown Southwest in the last two months 80% of my flights have been delayed.

 

I do believe most airlines if they have made a significant change will allow you to book a more expensive flight.  

 

I would stay away from American and Southwest flying to the cruise ports or if you need any type of reliable flight.

Edited July 24, 2021 by NMTraveller

[BEAV]

5 hours ago, terrydtx said:

Email from Celebrity Air, nothing from Delta yet.

 

Since you booked through Celebrity, does Delta have your contact info in order to notify you of changes?

[BEAV]

3 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I do believe most airlines if they have made a significant change will allow you to book a more expensive flight.  

 

Most people, understandably so, hate airline schedule changes. But it can also be used as a “get out of jail card” in that you can often score a change to a more premium flight you didn’t book initially due to it being higher priced. In the case of schedule changes, the airline just wants to get you rebooked onto something that’ll work for you. I’ve always looked at the situation as a winning lotto ticket!

 

 

[NMTraveller]

36 minutes ago, BEAV said:

 

Most people, understandably so, hate airline schedule changes. But it can also be used as a “get out of jail card” in that you can often score a change to a more premium flight you didn’t book initially due to it being higher priced. In the case of schedule changes, the airline just wants to get you rebooked onto something that’ll work for you. I’ve always looked at the situation as a winning lotto ticket!

 

 

I agree with you on the Delta front.  I am fortunate enough that my changes have only been in the unnoticable class of 15 minutes or less.

 

However Southwest is a totally different ball game.  They are incompetent at best.  In the last week I have spent over two hours on the AList line rescheduling September trips.  Their computer reschedules me on flights that are not even on the flight schedule.  A total train wreck.  I have had over 8 rescheduled trips in September from Southworst.  I have had a Boston trip rescheduled so many times I have lost track.  They are totally unreliable.  

 

I did reschedule all of my cruise flights to Delta.  I need predictability and reliability when I fly to the cruise ports.

 

Most of my Southwest changes have added a stop and a couple of hours to my intinerary. Not a fan...

Edited July 25, 2021 by NMTraveller