Flying, help in anticipating delay tip

[boufa]

I just thought I would throw this out there. A tip I found. I don't fly much, so maybe this is common information. Not so much for me.

When I have flown, often it seems like my flight is delayed or cancelled, not because of weather where I am, but on other legs of the route... PRIOR to the plane arriving at my airport to pick me up. Our flight was leaving late because our plane was coming in late.

I saw a tip from Samantha Brown recently, she recommended that you fly in the early morning hours, because there is a better chance that your plane has already arrived, and is sitting there overnight waiting to start its day with your flight. This would leave all delays isolated to your airport. Anything that happened yesterday, would have be caught up during the night.

I found a way to test this theory, and find out what was going on, before even leaving for the airport.. go to FlightAware.com and search for your flight. On the right side where it lists your flight in bold, underneath it will say "Track Inbound Flight" If you click this link it will show you where your plane last was, and where it is now. If you look at the historical data, you can get an idea what the plan is for the plane prior to your flight.

Fo example, my trip next week. My flight leaves at 755am. But the plane comes in from another city at 930pm the night before! So it will be sitting at the gate all night. Very little chance of a delay on that flight, since there is a 10 hours cushion. Also its conning from Atlanta, so in a case like the blizzard this weekend, since this specific plane isn't going anywhere near it, there wouldn't be a problem.

The disclaimer... airlines sometimes pull planes for service, or flight crew rotations, etc. This is a guide and not an absolute, but I would imagine it holds true more often than not.

 

[DebbieB]

I just thought I would throw this out there. A tip I found. I don't fly much, so maybe this is common information. Not so much for me.

When I have flown, often it seems like my flight is delayed or cancelled, not because of weather where I am, but on other legs of the route... PRIOR to the plane arriving at my airport to pick me up. Our flight was leaving late because our plane was coming in late.

I saw a tip from Samantha Brown recently, she recommended that you fly in the early morning hours, because there is a better chance that your plane has already arrived, and is sitting there overnight waiting to start its day with your flight. This would leave all delays isolated to your airport. Anything that happened yesterday, would have be caught up during the night.

I found a way to test this theory, and find out what was going on, before even leaving for the airport.. go to FlightAware.com and search for your flight. On the right side where it lists your flight in bold, underneath it will say "Track Inbound Flight" If you click this link it will show you where your plane last was, and where it is now. If you look at the historical data, you can get an idea what the plan is for the plane prior to your flight.

Fo example, my trip next week. My flight leaves at 755am. But the plane comes in from another city at 930pm the night before! So it will be sitting at the gate all night. Very little chance of a delay on that flight, since there is a 10 hours cushion. Also its conning from Atlanta, so in a case like the blizzard this weekend, since this specific plane isn't going anywhere near it, there wouldn't be a problem.

The disclaimer... airlines sometimes pull planes for service, or flight crew rotations, etc. This is a guide and not an absolute, but I would imagine it holds true more often than not.

I used to fly a lot for work. The issue I ran into with early morning flights is they were delayed due to crew rest. If the flight came in late the night before, the crew arrived late also. But in general you are better off with morning flights.

 

[SpaceMtnGirl]

So funny to come upon this post because I'm worried about this for our upcoming Orlando trip. I've had some bad experiences with delayed flights with Southwest. My choices for our flight to MCO are 10AM vs. 4PM. The 4pm is much cheaper but it is the last Southwest flight to MCO of the day and suppose it's cancelled? (It's happened to me before!) I'm thinking of paying more for the earlier flight just for less risk of not making it there. Our vacation is only 3 nights so losing a day would be a huge loss...

 

[nacho113]

So funny to come upon this post because I'm worried about this for our upcoming Orlando trip. I've had some bad experiences with delayed flights with Southwest. My choices for our flight to MCO are 10AM vs. 4PM. The 4pm is much cheaper but it is the last Southwest flight to MCO of the day and suppose it's cancelled? (It's happened to me before!) I'm thinking of paying more for the earlier flight just for less risk of not making it there. Our vacation is only 3 nights so losing a day would be a huge loss...

For a 3 night vacation we'd definitely grab the earlier flight. The extra cost is buying you an extra 1/2 day in the Magic.

 

[seashoreCM]

One in four flights (segments) arrives more than 15 minutes late. One in fifty is cancelled.

If a plane arrives more than 15 minutes late, unloads and boards, takes off for its next destination where it again lands more than 15 minutes late then that counts as two late arrivals.

I have not taken flight delays into account when choosing flights. I still avoid very early morning flights; midmorning is still my favorite time to leave for Disney. I still choose the latest flight home to make the most of my last day at Disney. More often than not I have chosen different days rather than different times if the fares for my chosen times and days were somewhat higher.

 

[SpaceMtnGirl]

For a 3 night vacation we'd definitely grab the earlier flight. The extra cost is buying you an extra 1/2 day in the Magic.

Thanks! You gave me the push I needed to book that earlier flight. It was $48 more total, so not too bad. We won't have park tickets for that day but we can take advantage of the pool at Royal Pacific and do Citywalk. And now I feel less worried about our flight being delayed.

 

[BenandMorgsMom]

Oh goodness...for $48 that is a given change. We fly PVD to MCO once a month and if available and can do we take the mid day flight so we can get business all set and if there is a delay we still get there. That late flight into Orlando usually has people waiting for it to leave MCO so we have never had a cancelled flight other than for weather in all these years. Now JetBlue...we were going to try it once. Booked. They cancelled the day of and booked us on the next day, no choice. We ended up flying SWA last minute. JetBlue....NEVER AGAIN!!!! We LUV SWA!

 

[figmentedfollies]

I've been able to fly directly, on JetBlue, from a small regional airport. Usually on the first flight out for the day. The only problem is that when it is foggy or poor weather the night before they cannot land the plane and have to divert to a much larger airport. Unfortunately they did not clearly explain that to us, the passengers, and had to be bussed to the larger airport.

 

[DebbieB]

One in four flights (segments) arrives more than 15 minutes late. One in fifty is cancelled.

If a plane arrives more than 15 minutes late, unloads and boards, takes off for its next destination where it again lands more than 15 minutes late then that counts as two late arrivals.

I have not taken flight delays into account when choosing flights. I still avoid very early morning flights; midmorning is still my favorite time to leave for Disney. I still choose the latest flight home to make the most of my last day at Disney. More often than not I have chosen different days rather than different times if the fares for my chosen times and days were somewhat higher.

What I've found is they are adding time to the schedules to avoid getting counted as late, most flights I've been on in the past 3 or 4 years arrive early.

 

[boufa]

What I've found is they are adding time to the schedules to avoid getting counted as late, most flights I've been on in the past 3 or 4 years arrive early.

I have been tracking my upcoming flights, and I am seeing this every day. It hasn't landed late in months (knock on wood). It looks like they have built in 15-30 minutes of cushion.

As someone flying in the winter, I worked hard, and exploited a few Delta schedule changes, to get my flight just the timing I wanted. I wanted earliest departure on the way in and late in the afternoon on the way out. To avoid snow related issues I wanted a connecting point in the south. I ended up with both flights from Cleveland connecting in Atlanta. The trip home had a connection in New York City, with a 3 hour layover. Not a big deal, but in the winter (as you can see today) NYC is a weather risk. When they rescheduled my flight and cut the layover to 90 minutes, I called and explained that they layover time was too short now. They agreed and worked with me to pick a better flight. The better flight turned out to be almost double the cost of the initial flight. I was not charged the difference or a change fee since it was Delta's schedule change that caused the rebooking.