Canceled Flights Now Driving

[BoozinCroozin]

The only reason we were flying was to use credits from the past canceled cruises. With American Airlines canceling another 1000 flights, it is no longer worth it. We will wind up losing money we spent 2 years ago and I am now stress free about it. In the end, we are only losing about 2 hours driving since we had to take a connecting flight. Its a 9-hour drive. We would have left our house at 3PM and arrive at MCO around 10:30PM is everything was perfect. Now, I can leave at 3AM if I wanted and be at the port by 12PM, relaxing, vacationing, having a drink. 

[rkacruiser]

8 hours ago, BoozinCroozin said:

With American Airlines canceling another 1000 flights, it is no longer worth it.

 

Does AA realize what this kind of news means to those who might consider flying on their planes?  

[FlyerTalker]

Of course, it might help if the reasons for the cancellations were discussed.

 

Do we start with the 50+ MPH gusts that prevented takeoffs and landings at DFW?  And the cascade effect elsewhere?  Added to the end-of-month time issues for crews?

[BoozinCroozin]

7 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

Of course, it might help if the reasons for the cancellations were discussed.

 

Do we start with the 50+ MPH gusts that prevented takeoffs and landings at DFW?  And the cascade effect elsewhere?  Added to the end-of-month time issues for crews?

The issue is they know they have issues and still have a 110% flight schedule for the amount of crew they had pre-covid. There would be almost no problems at all if they were operating at 100% of flights they have employees for. Instead, they are operating at about 133% of what they can legally fly for. The issues cascade because of poor management. They want to eke out every penny with no liability. The only thing they are required to provide is a refund. So do they really care if flights are canceled? You can't by a plane ticket for that refund amount for a same or next day flight. They could eliminate 1 of the routes per day for every common route they fly, have the planes on those routes at capacity and none of the problems exist.

 

In the end, my plane tickets are non-refundable and they are from canceled flights from March 2020. They expire at the end of the month and the funds are not transferable to other passengers. So, I am taking the loss because some of the airline industry are so messed up right now. 

[sippican]

American Airlines left us stranded in Ecuador this weekend. They rescheduled us on a flight that was three days after the cancelled flight!  FWIW,  Celebrity Air was absolutely no help whatsoever. My daughter was able to book us a flight home on Delta.

They've lost my business!

[CruiserBruce]

35 minutes ago, sippican said:

American Airlines left us stranded in Ecuador this weekend. They rescheduled us on a flight that was three days after the cancelled flight!  FWIW,  Celebrity Air was absolutely no help whatsoever. My daughter was able to book us a flight home on Delta.

They've lost my business!

Assuming this means the flights were booked through Celebrity Air.

[FlyerTalker]

49 minutes ago, sippican said:

American Airlines left us stranded in Ecuador this weekend. They rescheduled us on a flight that was three days after the cancelled flight!  FWIW,  Celebrity Air was absolutely no help whatsoever.

 

12 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Assuming this means the flights were booked through Celebrity Air.

 

Putting these two together, we have the great example of some of the limitations of cruiseline air.

 

I am going to assume that the ticket from Celebrity could not be endorsed over to another carrier.  A frequent condition of the fare rules of a bulk contract ticket.  Because of that, the AA ticket could not be sent over to fly home on DL or UA or several other possible carriers, including AeroMexico, Air Canada, Copa, Avianca or others.  And since your daughter got you tickets on DL, there were seats available to leave Ecuador.

 

I wouldn't be so quick to put this all on AA -- you bought a restricted ticket and the restrictions came back to get you.  Look at the Celebrity ticket fare rules and you might see how one can be "stuck".

[sippican]

11 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

 

Putting these two together, we have the great example of some of the limitations of cruiseline air.

 

I am going to assume that the ticket from Celebrity could not be endorsed over to another carrier.  A frequent condition of the fare rules of a bulk contract ticket.  Because of that, the AA ticket could not be sent over to fly home on DL or UA or several other possible carriers, including AeroMexico, Air Canada, Copa, Avianca or others.  And since your daughter got you tickets on DL, there were seats available to leave Ecuador.

 

I wouldn't be so quick to put this all on AA -- you bought a restricted ticket and the restrictions came back to get you.  Look at the Celebrity ticket fare rules and you might see how one can be "stuck".

 
Yes, the tickets were purchased through Flights by Celebrity.  I did not put this all on AA. They did send a text advising of cancellation on Friday, at which point I contacted Guest Relations onboard. Friday evening I was told by X that there was no problem with my flights, they were confirmed. Saturday morning, I received another cancellation text from AA. Celebrity again assured me the flights were fine.  So, my point is that, despite the fact that Celebrity advertises emergency travel support, it was nonexistent in this case. 
 

The great news is that my daughter was able to spend hours on the phone with Celebrity  and the tickets were paid for by X. (Almost 3k for economy on DL). 
 

[FlyerTalker]

So perhaps it should be clear that "They've lost my business!" was referring to Celebrity Air, not to AA.

 

I highly recommend that everyone considering purchasing air through a cruiseline should carefully read the actual terms and conditions of the air program -- not just the marketing fluff and weasel words.

 

To be clear, I am not saying "Don't buy cruiseline air" -- I'm just saying that many of the supposed benefits are less than assured.  Do your own cost/benefit analysis and see what you are willing to accept.

 

Caveat emptor.

[fbgd]

+1 @flyertalker

 

Some of the rules are extremely punitive and for the average punter who uses CruiseAir because they can't be bothered to book their own tickets I struggle to see how good many of these people would be at deciphering fare rules... 

 

I recall one thread from a few years ago that demonstrated how restrictive these fares can be. I want to say it was someone travelling from the west coast to Florida with a connection on the east coast. Their transcontinental flight was cancelled due to weather at the connection point. All the other passengers were able to rebook on other flights connecting elsewhere but their specific CruiseAir fare terms required that passenger to fly that specific routing with no endorsements to other carriers available so airport agents were not able to assist. They were literally the only passengers on their flights that were stuck and their new flight left 2 days later, missing the first few days of their cruise. 

 

The potentially frustrating part is that these CruiseAir tickets can be literally any combination of restrictive categories and until you book you don't know. From what I've read on previous threads the people on the phone who assist with these tickets are call centre reps, not travel agents, and barely seem to know anything about what they are selling you.

Edited November 2, 2021 by fbgd

[sippican]

2 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

So perhaps it should be clear that "They've lost my business!" was referring to Celebrity Air, not to AA.

 

I highly recommend that everyone considering purchasing air through a cruiseline should carefully read the actual terms and conditions of the air program -- not just the marketing fluff and weasel words.

 

To be clear, I am not saying "Don't buy cruiseline air" -- I'm just saying that many of the supposed benefits are less than assured.  Do your own cost/benefit analysis and see what you are willing to accept.

 

Caveat emptor.

  
Many good points!

Actually, yes to not choosing choice air in the future, but another yes to avoiding AA. The e-mail I received from them today was a joke. Why is it they were so severely impacted by weather last weekend  when other airlines had little, if any,  problem flying in and out of Texas? And the other reason given was staffing issues. Did they only realize this 24 hours in advance? 

[fbgd]

42 minutes ago, sippican said:

  Why is it they were so severely impacted by weather last weekend  when other airlines had little, if any,  problem flying in and out of Texas? And the other reason given was staffing issues. Did they only realize this 24 hours in advance? 

 

Err, because weather is a little more localized than just Texas.

 

I heard that crosswinds at DFW meant that optimal runways could not be used. Aircraft have a limit to the amount of crosswind component they can land in and the airport can't land the same number of aircraft in suboptimal conditions either. Not all airports have runways aligned the same way and weather obviously varies from one place to the next. 

 

As for staffing levels, well, airlines have flight crew on standby, mostly at hub airports, that can get to the airport at a few hours notice but due to COVID, etc. there aren't the large numbers of standby crews that there have been in other years. If their aircraft can't depart then they can't operate downroute legs from other hubs hence the knock on effects throughout the system affecting other hubs.

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, fbgd said:

I heard that crosswinds at DFW meant that optimal runways could not be used. Aircraft have a limit to the amount of crosswind component they can land in and the airport can't land the same number of aircraft in suboptimal conditions either. Not all airports have runways aligned the same way and weather obviously varies from one place to the next. 

 

DFW has 7 runways.  Five of them run in a North-South direction, while 2 are NW/SE in orientation.  The crosswind component was running almost directly across the five main runways, so they were out of operation.  The two others were still open, but at reduced capacity and dependent on the gusts.  So  over 70% of the runway capacity was lost.   FWIW, the two runways at Love Field are on the same direction as the NW/SE runways at DFW, so that basically equalized capacity between the two airports, with DFW having a far bigger schedule of operations.

 

Another item on staffing:  As the end of the month approaches, crews are hitting their limits on FAA allowable duty hours.  So there is an inherent labor crunch the last days of every month.  People may have been physically available, but barred by FAA regs from flying.

[CruiserBruce]

2 hours ago, sippican said:

  
Many good points!

Actually, yes to not choosing choice air in the future, but another yes to avoiding AA. The e-mail I received from them today was a joke. Why is it they were so severely impacted by weather last weekend  when other airlines had little, if any,  problem flying in and out of Texas? And the other reason given was staffing issues. Did they only realize this 24 hours in advance? 

Bet you didn't know Southwest also canceled several hundred flights this weekend...

[sippican]

17 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Bet you didn't know Southwest also canceled several hundred flights this weekend...

Bet I did.  A “bit” less than AA.
Weather is one thing we deal with frequently  (we live in New England), but how can you not know about staffing? 
Was DFW the only area of Texas impacted? Our companions flew to Houston on a different airline, no problem.

Edited November 3, 2021 by sippican

[Bo1953]

22 hours ago, fbgd said:

+1 @flyertalker

 

Some of the rules are extremely punitive and for the average punter who uses CruiseAir because they can't be bothered to book their own tickets I struggle to see how good many of these people would be at deciphering fare rules... 

 

I recall one thread from a few years ago that demonstrated how restrictive these fares can be. I want to say it was someone travelling from the west coast to Florida with a connection on the east coast. Their transcontinental flight was cancelled due to weather at the connection point. All the other passengers were able to rebook on other flights connecting elsewhere but their specific CruiseAir fare terms required that passenger to fly that specific routing with no endorsements to other carriers available so airport agents were not able to assist. They were literally the only passengers on their flights that were stuck and their new flight left 2 days later, missing the first few days of their cruise. 

 

The potentially frustrating part is that these CruiseAir tickets can be literally any combination of restrictive categories and until you book you don't know. From what I've read on previous threads the people on the phone who assist with these tickets are call centre reps, not travel agents, and barely seem to know anything about what they are selling you.

Hopefully they had great travel insurance but maybe did not bother to use it at the time?

 

bon voyage

[FlyerTalker]

2 hours ago, sippican said:

Was DFW the only area of Texas impacted? Our companions flew to Houston on a different airline, no problem.

 

Predominantly.  It was due to localized winds between two pressure areas.

 

Dallas - Houston is similar to Boston - Montreal.  And significant differences can and do occur in both cases.

[zdcatc12]

11 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Predominantly.  It was due to localized winds between two pressure areas.

 

Dallas - Houston is similar to Boston - Montreal.  And significant differences can and do occur in both cases.

And it usually happens two to three times a year. When it happens the Airport Arrival Rate drops from around 125 to about 30. That is landings per hour.

[iancal]

At the very least understand what the implications are of fare code on your ticket.  Airline tickets vary greatly....just as fares  on any flight.  As mentioned above.  All tickets are not equal.

 

Understand how often your carrier serves your location.   Daily, hourly?  And understand where their hubs are.

 

We will do a cruise air or consolidator ticket on BA to Europe because pre covid there are three flights daily to LHR.  The next question for us is once we get to LHR, how many BA flights leave two hour after our arrival in LHR  are there to our final destination.

 

We are especially careful in the winter, when we have tight connections, or need to be somewhere at a certain time/day.

Edited November 20, 2021 by iancal