Does anyone else have this much trouble with airlines?

[MasterShake2]

I’m just wondering if anyone else has this kind of trouble with airlines.

Last year we booked a flight out of our local airport round trip to Orlando. A month prior to our trip we get word that Delta has decided to pull out of our local airport and our flight had been automatically switched to Detroit. Detroit is about a 10 hour drive away from where we live in New York. We called Delta and were rudely told at first no refunds and Detroit was our only option. After a couple hours on the phone the best we could get was a later flight out of Syracuse, which is about 90 minutes out of our way. The wife and I agreed we’d never use Delta again.

This trip we booked through US Airlines. We selected a late afternoon flight so we would not need to take our child out of school for an additional day and because my wife was out of vacation time. I just happened to check our info online today (being paranoid with our last experience) and I big error message pops up saying I need to call US Airways because my flight had changed. Nothing online to let me know what’s going on and I never recieved an e-mail about this change. I had to call and be on the phone for 60 minutes.

I find out we’ve been switched to a much earlier flight. Now we have to hope my wife’s work will allow her to take more time and we have to take our daughter out of school for an additional day. I asked the supervisor if this happens often and I get the standard, “No, this rarely happens”. Then she proceeds to tell me that my return flight was switched to a much earlier time as well. Now we lose a ½ day in the parks.

I really hate dealing with these airlines and I’m wondering if this is standard or is it because we use a small airport or is it bad luck?

Anyone else have these types of reoccurring issues with flying?

 

[DebbieB]

Small airports have more problems because they don't have a large number of flights. If you are in a major city, they usually have several flights a day. I just had a hassle with Delta on my December WDW trip and got it straightened out and then on Friday I noticed that USAirways changed my return flight from Disneyland in September so that I now have a 3 1/2 hour layover in PHX. You really have to keep on top of them, neither had notified me. They are all cutting back with the bad economy and fuel prices.

 

[annacali]

We booked thru DL/NW for a recent trip to Hilton Head and booked about 5 months in advance. Our flight got changed no less than 5 times. Initially it was through Atlanta coming and going. At one point they wanted us to fly thru Memphis AND Detroit to come back home to Kansas City (with two small kids). Finally, after hours on the phone, got it back down to one layover in Detroit, but yes, ended up getting there late and leaving very early so lost about 2 days of our vacation in the process after all the changes. And had no seat assignments anywhere---had to wait for them even at each connection, for a party of 5 with two small children...so that was fun too. Air travel is SO exciting these days!

 

[emmaleigh47]

I’m just wondering if anyone else has this kind of trouble with airlines.

Last year we booked a flight out of our local airport round trip to Orlando. A month prior to our trip we get word that Delta has decided to pull out of our local airport and our flight had been automatically switched to Detroit. Detroit is about a 10 hour drive away from where we live in New York. We called Delta and were rudely told at first no refunds and Detroit was our only option. After a couple hours on the phone the best we could get was a later flight out of Syracuse, which is about 90 minutes out of our way. The wife and I agreed we’d never use Delta again.

This trip we booked through US Airlines. We selected a late afternoon flight so we would not need to take our child out of school for an additional day and because my wife was out of vacation time. I just happened to check our info online today (being paranoid with our last experience) and I big error message pops up saying I need to call US Airways because my flight had changed. Nothing online to let me know what’s going on and I never recieved an e-mail about this change. I had to call and be on the phone for 60 minutes.

I find out we’ve been switched to a much earlier flight. Now we have to hope my wife’s work will allow her to take more time and we have to take our daughter out of school for an additional day. I asked the supervisor if this happens often and I get the standard, “No, this rarely happens”. Then she proceeds to tell me that my return flight was switched to a much earlier time as well. Now we lose a ½ day in the parks.

I really hate dealing with these airlines and I’m wondering if this is standard or is it because we use a small airport or is it bad luck?

Anyone else have these types of reoccurring issues with flying?

In a nutshell, YES! I have had the worst luck flying, but mostly when I go to Orlando. Here is a short list of the flying trauma that I have had in the last 3 years.

2007 - Trip to Vegas. On the way was late for the connecting flight due to plane trouble. We get there, and as we are running for the gate the man next to me clutches his chest and goes down. I stop of course (I work in Cardiology) and husband is like... we are going to miss the plane. Yes, called for the AED and everything. Man lived -- we waited 5 hours for a new flight

On the way home, got into the connecting airport only to find out that our flight home had been cancelled. There was another flight one hour later, but they would not let us on it. Got onto a flight which landed in another airport 30 minutes away -- after running the entire length of O Hare, did finally make it home. Our luggage made it home 1 week later!

2008 - Midwest pulls all flights to Orlando ... wasnt too bad though got on another plane with slightly worse times.

2009 - Allegiant pulls all flights to Orlando - had to change the dates of the vacation because it was too expensive to fly out on Saturday with another company. Then of course because the dates changed, so did the park plans and the dining plans.

Spent 2 days this weekend getting it all situated! And it finally is so I can have a sense of humor about it.

Just before the Disney trip in October - I will be flying to Cincinnatti all alone for work -- scared!

 

[Chellymouse]

Delta is one of the worst carriers and I can't believe that people still fly with them. They treat the people who generally book the lower fares absolutely terribly. DH and I will NEVER fly Delta again after our experience with them 4 years ago. Delta consistently messed with our flight times, the flights were generally not all that great and their customer service, well, poor customer service would have been significantly better than what we received. For all of the crying the airlines are doing, one would think that these ludacris baggage fees would have been dumped by now and that they would be working very hard to restore the public's faith and trust.

 

[bradk]

Delta tends to do this thing a lot. although most airlines are guilty of it to an extent, they do seem to take advantage of it. basically when flights don't sell as well as they'd like, they consolidate and make changes and the contract of carriage that you adhere to when you purchase your tickets explicitly mentions that the times and other flight information pertaining to the flight you purchased are not guaranteed and subject to change at their whim.

i would never fly delta for this and other reasons. although my airline of choice is the only one i intend to fly anyway and they don't do this sort of thing.

 

[Fishteacher]

I completely understand!! I am a teacher who received special permission to take a personal day so that I can participate in the Expedition Everest Challenge in September. I specifically booked a 6:00pm flight so I could work the day of my departure. However, I just received an email stating that my flight has changed to 3:00??????? I am wondering how I am supposed to work this one out when I teach until 3:15 and live an hour away from the airport. I don't understand why they offer flights at all different times of the day and then change them 3 months before the date of departure. By the way, the airline is Spirit

 

[kymom99]

I had never had trouble until my trip in 2008. I had a similar experience, where I happened to check my flight and there was a note that it changed. The time was only slightly different, but the plane was different and the seats I had on my reservation did not coincide with the new plane. I called my friend whose SIL works for Delta. She looked up my reservation and said that I needed to call reservations and get my seat assignments changed. There weren't many seats left. I did call and got it all worked out but it could have been a disaster if I hadn't looked at the reservation.

When we were coming home, they had overbooked and were looking for people to take a bump. If my husband didn't have to be at work the next day, I may have considered it. I don't understand why they don't provide better customer service. It feels like they are herding cattle or something.

 

[AJKMOM]

I had never had trouble until my trip in 2008. I had a similar experience, where I happened to check my flight and there was a note that it changed. The time was only slightly different, but the plane was different and the seats I had on my reservation did not coincide with the new plane. I called my friend whose SIL works for Delta. She looked up my reservation and said that I needed to call reservations and get my seat assignments changed. There weren't many seats left. I did call and got it all worked out but it could have been a disaster if I hadn't looked at the reservation.

When we were coming home, they had overbooked and were looking for people to take a bump. If my husband didn't have to be at work the next day, I may have considered it. I don't understand why they don't provide better customer service. It feels like they are herding cattle or something.

Only problem with taking them up on the overbooking offer is that you would have to fly with them again. Sometimes I think even free isn't good enough to make me come back.

 

[ladeedeb]

Although our luck has been good most of the time, I have had a couple of issues, including canceled flights. Be that as it may, having to get to the airport way ahead of time, plus parking there, plus the drive to the airport all make it much better to fly our own plane. Also, we don't have to plan in advance and worry about our flight getting canceled. There are a couple of drawbacks to flying ourselfs, including weather issues & the fact that I get sick in turbulence.

We have found that having our own plane (experimental built in the garage/basement) is terrific, although very expensive (my husband saves his paychecks to pay for it). It does come in very handy for by-passing those pesky airlines.

Hope you all find better luck with other airlines. We have done well with Southwest &, most of the time, with United (although we have frequent flyer with them from business trips).

 

[carol-lamb]

I usually fly Northwest out of Detroit to Orlando and have never had any problems. With respect to my last flight on the 17th of this month, they sent me an e-mail a couple months before to let me know that they had changed the time of the flight to leave about 10 minutes earlier than originally scheduled.

Reading all the posts about how crappy Delta is makes me nervous because Northwest is now Delta, but for now they are still calling it Northwest, but they use one ticket counter and the same gates. The one thing that is really nice about Northwest is that they have several daily non-stop flights out of Detroit to Orlando. Right now most of the Delta flights out of Detroit have layovers in Atlanta (their hub city).

I have flown Southwest out of Detroit to Orlando a couple of times and they are excellent. The problem is they usually have one non-stop flight a day.

 

[Toluca Legs TurkeyCo]

Fly Continental...never had a problem in my life.

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

I have had my trouble with airlines but it's never a specific one that I have issues with, it's actually the airport I am flying in/out of. I have issues with JFK and SFO every time we touch them As crazy as ATL is and as much I fly in/out of there, I haven't had a problem yet.

At least with JFK, as an avid Yankees fan, I can usually catch the game on... I always seem to fly out when there is one on, idk why.

As for actuall airline related issues, the only one's I have encountered are:
1. Overbooking on United Airlines twice, we took the offer and were able to get $900 total in future flying credit.
2. A flight on Southwest that had the airplane coming from Oakland... they had a problem in Oakland so my flight leaving Portland was delayed over 3 hours.
3. Delta really likes to use September for the month they start switching scheduling so our flights have been moved for our Sept 2008 WDW trip significantly and this year's trip in Sept 2009 by 25 minutes on one flight, 8 minutes on the other.

All in all, no big deal really.


ETA: We fly Delta all the time now so the schedule switching in my mind is a pretty good flights : problem ratio.

ETA2: I forgot on our first trip to NYC. This was RIGHT after 9/11, I was in a group of about 200 Oregonians, with a lot of Oregonian politicians, who participated in the "Flight for Freedom" which was a way to show we weren't afraid to fly, etc... and we were all in the Columbus Day parade in NYC as well... ANYWAY, our flight there wasn't a fun one. It was red-eye with a layover in SFO to JFK of only 30 minutes! So naturally, there's so much traffic at SFO that we have to circle in the air for about 35 minutes before we can land and of course, our JFK plane has taken off. So we have to then fly into ATL from SFO to LaGuardia which still wasn't bad only the family travelling with us had made shuttle arrangements at JFK. It was a nightmare for an unbelievable experience... how many people could go to NYC and have the entire staff off the Waldorf Astoria applading you as you arrive, or having policemen thanking YOU for coming to their city... it was the saddest trip but a trip of a lifetime

 

[luvthemouse71]

My state's airport is small..not the smallest one out there, but small. The only international flights it does are to Canada. But we've had relatively good luck flying from there.

I will say that we used Delta a few years ago, and found them very rude and unhelpful.( more so when flying out of Orlando) We now use Southwest and have not had any problems. Sorry you are going through this OP. I cannot imagine being told that I have a 10 hour drive ahead of me just to catch my flight. That makes no sense.

 

[mmmbop]

We always fly out of SYR. Quite a few years ago (before online booking and Delta was the "official" airline of WDW) my grandmother called and made a reservation for 6 (me, mother, grandmother, uncle #1 & gf, uncle #2). We get the mail and discover that they had me going on a totally different plane! Different time and everything. My poor grandmother had to spend at least an hour trying to get it straightened out. Oh, and then they also had uncle's GF's name as our last name, and uncle as her last name.

Another year, we flew with the only carrier that had a direct flight to Orlando. No one told us it was Orlando Sanford! I knew it was a small airport, but we didn't realize it didn't open until 3! My grandmother had bad knees, and the closest seat to the front was row 26! That evening, her knee went out completely and she fell. Her knees have never been the same since.

Ever since Jetblue came to town, we've mostly flown with them and haven't had a problem. The only thing is that we travel in the winter, and a storm always seems to come through when we want to go home So we usually end up with a few hours of delay, but since other airlines have to delay their NE flights, I don't mind too much.

However, I'm going on a quick trip with my mother in August. Jetblue's fares were ridiculous and we booked through Expedia. I believe going down it's Continental, and we've had our flight changed three times so far (and it's never the connecting flight to MCO!) We still have a 1.5-hour layover in Cleveland, so hopefully it doesn't continue to be shortened & we don't have any problems in Cleveland!

 

[surfergirl602]

When we booked with Jet Blue our flights were switched around three or four different times and it really messed all of our plans up!

 

[AngVT]

We are flying Delta also. I booked our flights with delta dollars (we were asked to be bumped last trip, last october.) The flights have been changed NO LESS THAN 5 times... the latest change had a layover of 8 minutes on the way to Orlando, and our flight home had a flight into JFK arriving at 9pm, and connecting at..... 7:30 pm (1.5 hrs. earlier than the arrival!!!) It's just classic schedule switching. I was on the phone with Delta for 1 hour to change this over. (irritated, but since I booked with credits, it's just more of a pain then it's worth.)

 

[Katieinwonderland]

Fly Continental...never had a problem in my life.

We always fly Continental and have never had a flight changed on us, never dealt with any problems really. They have always been great and the customer service is excellent.

Now obviously I've gone and totally jinxed my upcoming flights!!!

 

[dis-happy]

2007 - Trip to Vegas. On the way was late for the connecting flight due to plane trouble. We get there, and as we are running for the gate the man next to me clutches his chest and goes down. I stop of course (I work in Cardiology) and husband is like... we are going to miss the plane. Yes, called for the AED and everything. Man lived -- we waited 5 hours for a new flight
(

Oh my goodness!!!! You saved a man's life! I hope they at least put you into a club lounge to wait for the new flight!!!

 

[erincon23]

This past March, we were flying to WDW to meet up with our DS 16 and his high school band. We had 2 frequent flyers on United and 1 on American. DH was taking DS 13 and I was flying solo (return trip with DS 16 -- there were no problems with the return, thank heavens). I made the arrangements 9 months in advance in order to get the FF flights I wanted. The only flight I could get for DH was Chicago - JFK - Orlando, not a big deal. They'd get in about 3. Mine was direct Chicago- Orlando, get in about 2. Fine.

Then hubby got an email (which he doesn't check regularly, and this was part of the problem) in August saying his flight had been changed -- Chicago - JFK, LaGuardia-Orlando! How was he going to do that???? On the phone with United and on the computer at the same time, we found a direct Chicago-WDW, leaving at 10 am, booked that.

Our computer crashed in January -- should have known because we'd been having problems, such as not being able to log into United's site -- and when I got the new hard drive, I immediately logged into United and found that they had actually changed the flight, not Chi-Orlando, but Chi-NY!!!! Not that NY isn't fun to visit, but that wasn't where they were going! The rep was very nice, I was very panicky, but there wasn't much they could do on a Saturday night. They said they'd probably put them on a 1 pm flight, even though the 10 am I had thought they were on was open. On Tuesday (and every subsequent days I tried to call and get it changed), United wouldn't even consider the 10 am.

In the meantime, thinking they were getting in at noon, I got my flight changed to get in at 11 am. So now I'm getting in at 11, they're getting at 4! In the end, we were able to get them going stand-by leaving at 7:30, and I left at 8 -- we both ended up on flights with the HS band (they were also split on to the two airlines). Best advice is to check online frequently (daily if you're really nervous) and call IMMEDIATELY if you notice any problems.

- Erin