AA - ontime?

[disneyagain]

We've never flown AA, but the rates out of Laguardia were so good for a non-stop flight, I booked them. Now I notice the "on-time" percentage and the early evening flight down has 30% listed next to it.

Is that accurate? Anyone have any experience with this?

TIA

 

[JimMIA]

I don't think your problem is AA, it's Laguardia! That's a horrible airport to fly out of, but you may have little choice. And when the weather is ugly in the Northeast, it doesn't matter who you fly or where you fly from.

My experience with AA has always been great. A couple of years ago I had 29 consecutive segments that were either on-time or early. But those were flying out of Miami, mostly non-stop or through DFW.

I have also found that when air travel really goes in the toilet, American always finds a way to get me home as expeditiously as possible. That's not always true with other airlines, although you will probably hear horror stories about any airline. I'm also sure my frequent flyer status with AA helps a lot.

I was returning home from Philly on AA a couple of years ago and a colleague was returning from Philly to Austin, TX on Delta. The weather was horrible, and no airline could do anything about that. But American got me home that night - 1 AM, but home! My colleague called me at 4 PM the next afternoon and told me she had just walked in the door! She got stuck in Atlanta overnight.

 

[JimMIA]

The other thing you have to realize is that they consider anything over about 15 minutes to be late. On a non-stop flight, if you are 30-40 minutes late, do you really care? Probably not; it's not a big inconvenience. It would be a different story if you were connecting, but flying non-stop it's not a big deal -- especially when you are going to see the Mouse!

 

[dvc guy]

I fly out of LGA a lot. Early evening is when everybody wants to go, so the basic problem is too many flights and only 1 runway. My advice is sitback and relax, I never expect to take off on time at LGA. Any airline will be the same so enjoy your cheap flight

 

[disneyagain]

Thanks for the replys...I feel better, I wasn't sure what 30% "really" meant. Even if we're 1 hr late getting out. we don't have a connection to worry about and we'll still be to MCO by 10:30pm. Head to the hotel for the night then off to the DCL Wonder for 3 days of fun in the sun! We've never flown out of Laguardia, so it should be an experience. We'll drive down from upstate that afternoon. $135/ticket, for a non-stop flight, I just couldn't resist! We're taking our nephew with us this time, so I had to get 5 tix...I planned $200 each, so I now have $300 for a day at the park after the cruise, since we don't fly back until Monday am.......6 more months!

 

[safetymom]

Also the airlines pad the time it will take to reach your destination. So they already have extra time built in for delays.