Delta today is an example of why not to fly in the day of

[xlxo]

Not just airlines.... weather can mess you up too.

 

[disneyholic family]

? People get fired for "things happening". Delta, like any other large corp. has outdated procedures, equipment and staff. A Disney Cruise Line ship operates tighter than a single airline flight. There is little to do, as travelers, other than post here about how defects in a system, anyone's system, impacts you. Roll of the dice folks

and again,.....whatever the reason for the delayed flight, if you had yourself arriving on the same day as the cruise, you have no one but yourself to blame for that ship sailing without you...

of course, even if you had yourself arrive 3 or 4 days in advance, stuff happens....
that volcano stopped people for an entire week....so yeah, there were people who missed the boat.....
so certainly there are some things that can't be planned for no matter how many days in advance you arrive.....

but arriving on the same day as the ship sails?...yes, you're asking for trouble if you do that...
shall i add, IMHO? ...yeah...it's my opinion.....
and every time i read a thread posted by someone who's all upset about the ship sailing because their same day arrival was late, i have that same opinion....

..

 

[disneyholic family]

Not just airlines.... weather can mess you up too.

weather, and strikes (airport strikes/pilot strikes/mechanics strikes), and mechanical problems, and volcanic eruptions, and apparently bad software or hardware....
lots of stuff can and do go wrong...
if you like to live dangerously, then go ahead and arrive the same day...
otherwise, go for at least a small cushion of safety...

.

 

[RedSox68]

but this doesn't help you if you scheduled yourself to arrive the same day...
anyone who does that, has no one but themselves to blame for missing the boat....so to speak...

Oh, I agree. I was referring to the fact that this happened at all and it is taking days for Delta to correct it and leaving people all over the world stranded.

We have never flown in same day. It is worth the price of an overnight stay just to be there ahead of time. Three times our flights were delayed at the airport for (1) mechanical failure; (2) plane late from previous airport; and (3) the towers went out and we were delayed for four hours -- missing our scheduled dinner at WDW.

 

[JoieNsk]

I envy people who can fly 3 days in advance - say for 7 days cruise This is almost impossible for us. Unless we do like one vacation in two years We just can't have a vacation that long - as a family. Somebody has to work or go to school, or something.

We are doing 9 day European cruise next summer. But that is going to be like "once in lifetime", as both me and my daughter are graduating next summer. So my husband has to sacrifice all his golf outings with friends etc - to be able to take vacation that long.

So I understand why people have to fly the same day sometimes. Though I personally would avoid it by any means. But the most we can do - fly the day before, - most often just the night before. And - yes! - we do buy travel insurance.

So we are going to keep rolling the dice

 

[disneyholic family]

Oh, I agree. I was referring to the fact that this happened at all and it is taking days for Delta to correct it and leaving people all over the world stranded.

We have never flown in same day. It is worth the price of an overnight stay just to be there ahead of time. Three times our flights were delayed at the airport for (1) mechanical failure; (2) plane late from previous airport; and (3) the towers went out and we were delayed for four hours -- missing our scheduled dinner at WDW.

since we travel so much and have to fly so far, we have had every kind of ridiculous delay.....
here's one you never heard of....or at least i'd never heard of it until it happened to us...
we flew into JFK, with a nice 3 hour layover to cross immigration and customs, and get to our connecting flight to florida with plenty of time...
yeah...well...no...
even though our plane arrived on time....and we zipped through immigration, we stood for a very long time at the baggage carousel..
all of us did.....everyone on our 747 stood there waiting....
of course there was no one around to talk to...
those who did talk said something about a slowdown of workers at JFK....
that sounded believable..
so we waited and waited...and waited...
the baggage carousel buzzed....went around and around....nothing....empty...
and it stopped...
and we waited and waited and waited..
this continued for something like 2 hours....more maybe...

finally the announcement came......the cargo door wouldn't open.....huh?
that's a new one....cargo door? really?
maybe.....maybe not....maybe a strike?
who knows...
but there would be no luggage for 6 hours...
so everyone was told to continue on their way to their final destinations and then make a claim at their final airport (for us, orlando)..
but..
we'd already missed our connection....oops

so we ran out of customs to find the airline rep.....with a line of about 400 people...
being the i eat nails for breakfast type, i ran to the front of the line and said who i was and that we'd missed our connection..
the airline rep was thrilled that i'd come forward as they were waiting to wisk us onto a bus for la guardia to try to catch the last flight from there (all JFK flights to orlando were already gone)..

so we jumped on the bus...this huge bus....my daugther and me.....and another mother and her son (we didn't know them....but they were also headed to WDW)..

the driver headed out....saying he doubted we'd make it but he'd do his best..
he pulled up to laguardia and the 4 of us made a mad dash for security (in the days where they would push you to the front if your flight was close)..
and then we did a la guardia mini marathon to get us to the gate....with about 10 minutes to spare....

so really, we did make it the same day....though it wouldn't have been in time for a cruise...but we were headed to WDW (albeit without luggage)..

(by the way, the luggage actually did arrive the next day - we got to our room at the WL after a day in the parks in our newly bought clothes and there the luggage was....in all its glory!! it had crossed customs, and flown to orlando all on its own....but we also had to spend an extra hour in orlando at baggage claim to file the report of our missing luggage...so more time to potentially miss the boat...not to mention, arriving at the ship without luggage...)

anyway....there are millions of reasons for delays....(another time we were delayed by a fuel company workers strike...yes....fuel company workers.....our plane couldn't be refueled so we had to make an extra stop in cyprus to gas up to make it across the atlantic....and then got delayed yet again when the ticked off pilot landed the plane in halifax instead of toronto, saying he'd gone over his time because of the extra stop....which he could have ignored had he wanted to but decided to teach the airline a lesson....so we were delayed an additional 6 hours in the frozen tundra of halifax.......how stupid is that?).


.

 

[RedSox68]

I envy people who can fly 3 days in advance - say for 7 days cruise This is almost impossible for us. Unless we do like one vacation in two years We just can't have a vacation that long - as a family. Somebody has to work or go to school, or something.

We are doing 9 day European cruise next summer. But that is going to be like "once in lifetime", as both me and my daughter are graduating next summer. So my husband has to sacrifice all his golf outings with friends etc - to be able to take vacation that long.

So I understand why people has to fly the same day sometimes. Though I personally would avoid it by any means. But the most we can do - fly the day before, - most often just the night before. And - yes! - we do buy travel insurance.

So we are going to keep rolling the dice

You actually don't have to fly in three days in advance. Just fly in the afternoon or evening before and pay for one night's hotel. If your ship leaves on a Sunday, fly in on Saturday and you wouldn't miss work. If it leaves on a Saturday, fly out Friday afternoon and only miss half a day, but at least you wouldn't risk anything happening the day of.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I find it odd that two major airlines have had system-wide outages within a few weeks of one another, especially since I agree with you that there should be redundancies which would keep a faulty router or power outage from causing problems of this magnitude. I wonder if these airlines weren't hacked and they don't want it leaked what the real cause of the problem was.

My thought exactly. This is too strange for a mere coincidence.

 

[minorthr]

Faulty network router supposedly caused SouthWest's woes and now a power outage at headquarters for Delta? Thats it? I'm in IT for a much smaller company and this would not stand here. Redundancies out the wazoo are the standard nowadays, I wonder how bad their budget has been?

You can have a million redundant systems but if your not periodically checking to make sure they actually work they are no good.

 

[DisneySunPrincess]

The outage at Delta today is the definitive reason why you should not fly in the same day. This would completely ruin your vacation. Yes, if you have insurance you get your money back. However, you don't get your vacation back.

Agreed 1000%! I was just saying the same thing to my husband this morning on the way to work. We are so blessed to live here in Central Florida, only an 75 minute drive from the Port. But if I had to fly in order to cruise, it would never, ever be on the same day.

 

[bumbershoot]

so we ran out of customs to find the airline rep.....with a line of about 400 people...
being the i eat nails for breakfast type, i ran to the front of the line and said who i was and that we'd missed our connection..
the airline rep was thrilled that i'd come forward as they were waiting to wisk us onto a bus for la guardia to try to catch the last flight from there (all JFK flights to orlando were already gone)..

...the 4 of us made a mad dash for security (in the days where they would push you to the front if your flight was close)..

.

So glad you confessed that.
I'm actually not that forceful in real life, but as dh stood in line not moving for 45 min at LAX on Monday then a roving CS person started answering questions for people who went up to her, I went up to her.

Dh was still in line 10 minutes before boarding, having moved maybe 5 feet from when he got in line over an hour before (I have timestamped texts and pictures from the line lol), but we got our proper (paid-for first class upgrade despite the app suddenly putting us in Main Cabin...we had originally been in Comfort Plus!) seats and we got onboard solely because I put on my "ya gotta do what ya gotta do" hat.

As DH stood in that line he found out that no one else was having issues with THAT flight. They were waiting to talk about the next flight from the gate OR were "making sure" that the seats shown in their printed boarding passes were still their seats.

The people monopolized the ONE agent for literally 45 minutes were dealing with a long cancelled flight to not-Seattle NOR the next flight at the gate, trying to get their baggage. 45 min, as our flight got closer and closer and people with no seat assignments waited to let the gate know they were there (not sure why we had no assignments but that was the case), dealing with something that had no urgency because they had hours for their flight.

Sometimes you have to jump the line because other people are in line for no good reason. They could help you, they could help us...so it was good that we did that. Hurrah.



Oh and we saw two women being rushed up to security at lax while we were coming in the airport. So they still do rush people when they can!

 

[phinz]

Faulty network router supposedly caused SouthWest's woes and now a power outage at headquarters for Delta? Thats it? I'm in IT for a much smaller company and this would not stand here. Redundancies out the wazoo are the standard nowadays, I wonder how bad their budget has been?

Even Regal Entertainment Group has a massive, 18-wheeler-sized generator in their parking lot to keep their server farm going when the power goes out. It used to kick on every Friday morning and run for a while as a weekly test.

 

[AquaDame]

So glad you confessed that.
I'm actually not that forceful in real life, but as dh stood in line not moving for 45 min at LAX on Monday then a roving CS person started answering questions for people who went up to her, I went up to her.

Dh was still in line 10 minutes before boarding, having moved maybe 5 feet from when he got in line over an hour before (I have timestamped texts and pictures from the line lol), but we got our proper (paid-for first class upgrade despite the app suddenly putting us in Main Cabin...we had originally been in Comfort Plus!) seats and we got onboard solely because I put on my "ya gotta do what ya gotta do" hat.

As DH stood in that line he found out that no one else was having issues with THAT flight. They were waiting to talk about the next flight from the gate OR were "making sure" that the seats shown in their printed boarding passes were still their seats.

The people monopolized the ONE agent for literally 45 minutes were dealing with a long cancelled flight to not-Seattle NOR the next flight at the gate, trying to get their baggage. 45 min, as our flight got closer and closer and people with no seat assignments waited to let the gate know they were there (not sure why we had no assignments but that was the case), dealing with something that had no urgency because they had hours for their flight.

Sometimes you have to jump the line because other people are in line for no good reason. They could help you, they could help us...so it was good that we did that. Hurrah.



Oh and we saw two women being rushed up to security at lax while we were coming in the airport. So they still do rush people when they can!

I would so be your husband... life has taught me if I squeak, people pounce. Heck if I DON'T squeak people pounce...

We had maintenance issues on a short commuter plane a few years ago that was supposed to get me to Seattle to catch a flight to Orlando. I dutifully waited my turn in line and watched as planes that could get me there left without me. Finally when I got up to the counter the lady got SO mad asking why I hadn't stepped forward right away. Hellooooo, you never announced anything or said to! I didn't want to get shanked by the angry people around me also trying to get their flights sorted! She asked if I could run and I said yes, so I had to literally run all the way from one side of the airport to the other to hop on a partner flight. Luckily PDX isn't that huge, but I seriously had 10 minutes or I'd be shut out of that flight also!

Earlier this year the winter storms at JFK ended up grounding our plane. I watched the weather get worse and worse in the NE on the news and panicked for two days waiting for JetBlue to cancel our flight so I could change things, but they didn't. Finally the website said we were cleared to call in and change our flights if we wanted to leave Thursday instead of Friday but as someone else said we had work - not to mention pet sitters - and couldn't leave early last minute. Since we were given this option, they would not could not refund us a single dime since the flight hadn't been cancelled (yet). I'm still angry about it... in the end I had her switch us from PDX->JFK->SJU (San Juan) to just a short Orlando to San Juan flight as its all that would work. Then I also had to burn 40,000 Alaska Airlines miles to get to Orlando in time for that flight. I'm really glad I didn't have to pay cash for them, but it seriously makes my stomach turn just thinking about all those wasted miles. The real kicker was sitting in PDX waiting to board our flight to Seattle for our connection and having them finally cancel the JetBlue flight one hour prior to departure. It would have been so hard to reroute us both with that short of notice! If they hadn't known at least as early as I did that it wasn't going to happen I'll eat my tin foil hat. Lucky them though, they got to keep my hundreds of dollars... For anyone keeping track yes we were flying in a day prior. I even opted to take the red eye flight Friday night arriving at 11am on Saturday just in case instead of using all day Saturday to get there. We sailed Sunday evening, but it still wasn't enough time since those storms can muck things up for days.

 

[JoieNsk]

You actually don't have to fly in three days in advance. Just fly in the afternoon or evening before and pay for one night's hotel.

I actually mentioned in my post that this is exactly what WE usually do

I was just referring to the point I see people mention they do long cruises, and also fly several days in advance. And I always am amazed with how people manage to fit such long vacation into their schedules.

I can more easily see when people struggle to add even one more day to their vacation, and sometimes take a risk to fly on the same day.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Delta is still cancelling flights...it is possible even 3 days ahead would not have been enough for this one.

 

[OKW Lover]

Official Delta statement. http://news.delta.com/update-flight-schedule-continuing-improve

 

[Plaid Princess]

Faulty network router supposedly caused SouthWest's woes and now a power outage at headquarters for Delta? Thats it? I'm in IT for a much smaller company and this would not stand here. Redundancies out the wazoo are the standard nowadays, I wonder how bad their budget has been?

I find it odd that two major airlines have had system-wide outages within a few weeks of one another, especially since I agree with you that there should be redundancies which would keep a faulty router or power outage from causing problems of this magnitude. I wonder if these airlines weren't hacked and they don't want it leaked what the real cause of the problem was.

The reason outages affect airlines more obviously than other businesses is because of the redundancies. Airline's won't operate without redundancies in place, which means if something goes out and the systems are taken to backup, that is considered a complete outage. An outage may only take down part of a system, but for safety reasons an airline isn't going to fly planes that they can't track, or dispatch a flight without an accurate copy of the manifest. It's easy to say that a few redundancies would fix the problem, but it's really not that simple (and lets be clear, two system failures does not a crisis make, even if they're close together). A small IT company really can't be compared to a global network of mobile systems that sends those systems 30,000 feet into the air, often over oceans, with hundreds of souls onboard.

Ask yourself this: do you really want to get on an airplane if the airline says, "Eh, that's close enough. We have most of the information". Answer: you don't.

Airlines don't really care.

Always nice to hear after I just worked 3 hours past the end of my shift to make sure that passengers got to their destinations after a cancellation.

 

[MillauFr]

Can't do much more than flying in the day before, should give you a "cushion" for delays. Can NEVER understand why people don't pay for travel insurance. It is " peace if mind" for all of our trips, truly never know. Enjoy!

I never buy travel insurance. My insurance is paying extra to fly in two days ahead of time and going to Disneyworld.

 

[xlxo]

Looks like Delta did not put enough money into the IT department....

http://www.zdnet.com/article/delta-system-outage-heres-what-went-wrong/

 

[jerseygal]

Heard on the news that all of the major airlines computer systems are old and need upgrade. Not surprising that in the last year a few major airlines have had problems. Some travelers have been delayed as much as 3 days with Delta! Hotel, food at least can be covered with travel insurance, makes good sense as a covered reason.