Is Coronavirus affecting your travel plans?

[AndreaDM]

I feel really bad for all the people who have worked so hard to plan and promote these conventions/conferences/trade shows that are being canceled! Yeah, it's disappointing not to be able to attend if it's something you've been looking forward to, but from the behind the scenes perspective it sucks! My company does the marketing for 2 huge buying shows every year, the next one is the first of April and I'm hoping that the last 6 months of work we've done for it won't be in vain! Until I did this myself I had no idea the amount of work that goes into pulling off a show like this!

I'm with a PP, the only way this will affect my travel plans is if I too get the $69 room rate email!

 

[mousefan73]

I work at Andrews Air Force Base. Everyone is teleworking tomorrow to do a "stress" test for the network to see if it can handle all of the traffic.

Our company already concluded if all face to face meetings that normally occur in our headquarters were done via MS Teams or Skype our IT infrastructure would not be able to handle that. Yesterday we already noticed network issues and we even have them in normal times

 

[Searc]

flights prices have now plummeted from $500-600 range to $132-188!

I have not seen that.

 

[DawnM]

No. I live in NC and am going to AZ and CA to visit family in 2 weeks. We are having my mother's West Coast funeral for the WC side of the family. I have no plans to change it.

Heading to FL in May to take my son to WDW for the DCP. We will be going down a lot this year!

 

[DawnM]

I don't know what I am missing. I purchased a ticket from NC to Phoenix, AZ two weeks ago. Flights were $418 R/T with non-stop service.

That same flight is $648 today.

Flights are not going down for me at all. Car rentals aren't either.

 

[Moliphino]

My return flight from MCO at the end of the month dropped by $129, so I have a nice credit now. My flight to MCO is slightly more than when I bought it, but it was pretty cheap to begin with.

 

[RamblingMad]

I don't know what I am missing. I purchased a ticket from NC to Phoenix, AZ two weeks ago. Flights were $418 R/T with non-stop service.

That same flight is $648 today.

Flights are not going down for me at all. Car rentals aren't either.

Same for me. Priced my trip to GNP. No price drop.

 

[NotUrsula]

I don't know what I am missing. I purchased a ticket from NC to Phoenix, AZ two weeks ago. Flights were $418 R/T with non-stop service.

That same flight is $648 today.

Flights are not going down for me at all. Car rentals aren't either.

What I am seeing is that leisure carrier/destination prices are not changing much, but business travel carrier/destinations are. Yesterday we were able to drastically lower our Spring Break fare to Orlando by switching the return from SWA to American. SWA's flights are still booked solid, but AA's went from full to 75% as soon as the airline announced that cancellation fees were being waived. (I vastly prefer SWA, but to save $800, I'll deal)

I'm 99% sure that the reason that flight was freed up was the HIMSS cancellation in Orlando. (Most of the time I would say that cancelling conferences is overkill, but in that particular case, I think that the folks who normally would be attending it will definitely be needed at work, as international healthcare IT will be very stressed by this situation.)

 

[DawnM]

What I am seeing is that leisure carrier/destination prices are not changing much, but business travel carrier/destinations are. Yesterday we were able to drastically lower our Spring Break fare to Orlando by switching the return from SWA to American. SWA's flights are still booked solid, but AA's went from full to 75% as soon as the airline announced that cancellation fees were being waived. (I vastly prefer SWA, but to save $800, I'll deal)

I'm 99% sure that the reason that flight was freed up was the HIMSS cancellation in Orlando. (Most of the time I would say that cancelling conferences is overkill, but in that particular case, I think that the folks who normally would be attending it will definitely be needed at work, as international healthcare IT will be very stressed by this situation.)

So, you are saying I need to go to Orlando for Spring Break!

I didn't realize that my Arizona trip coincided with Spring Training, a busy time in AZ. I am assuming Spring Training wont' be cancelled, but who knows at this point.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yeah my flights for Vegas on Easter Sunday coming back several days later is the same price as it has been for months.

SWA did have a sale recently.

 

[lifesavacation]

Alaska Air was selling one way tickets to Hawaii for $99 out of Seattle and Portland.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Alaska Air was selling one way tickets to Hawaii for $99 out of Seattle and Portland.

IDK SWA doesn't have that much differerence when going out of CA in the next month or two with May and June and on being more expensive.

I think it's more SWA effect, seasonal adjustments, sales, etc.

 

[Searc]

So, you are saying I need to go to Orlando for Spring Break!

I didn't realize that my Arizona trip coincided with Spring Training, a busy time in AZ. I am assuming Spring Training wont' be cancelled, but who knows at this point.

Spring Training is almost over. It finishes up in a couple weeks. It won't be cancelled.

 

[wvjules]

Wow so my employer just sent out an email. Effective immediately, we are ceasing internal (non-client) travel throughout March, except where deemed essential to operating the firm. Client travel will be permitted and no international travel until at least end of April.

 

[Deploraboo]

So I just check my flight deets for tomorrow and it sure looks like a bunch of seats canceled. Totally anecdotal but sat flight to dis from ewr around this time should be SRO. Could be BC United is adding widebodies for their MCO EWR routes, but maybe not.

 

[NotUrsula]

UK airline Flybe just declared bankruptcy. Effective immediately. Passengers are stranded all over Europe;
https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav...be-collapses-stranding-passengers/4961476002/

 

[gotomu212]

IDK SWA doesn't have that much differerence when going out of CA in the next month or two with May and June and on being more expensive.

I think it's more SWA effect, seasonal adjustments, sales, etc.

Thanks to this post, I checked our April SW flights for Orange County. We bought with points in late November. We used 19,500 pots per ticket out there, just rebooked for 9,700. That saved us 40k points. The tickets back hadn’t changed, but while out there my son and husband are flying up to Oakland for the day, those tickets were booked at 7500 points, and are now 3700 each way.

Glad I checked, and the flexibility on SW is the reason they are always our #1 choice. Having to pick a seat as we board is a minor issue for free bags and the ability to cancel flights at zero cost.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The articles with Flybe are misleading IMO. Coronavirus is affecting air travel and may have been the final nail so to speak but Flybe has been having issues for a while.

Another article I was reading said "Flybe has struggled with a series of issues, including the weakening of the pound in light of Britain’s pending departure from the European Union. The weaker pound hurts airlines like Flybe that have significant costs in dollars but take in revenue in pounds. The airline also was struggling to pay its airline passenger duty, a tax on flights that many airline groups have long complained restricts growth."

Another article has this "Flybe had a tumultuous decade after its 2010 IPO. Hemorrhaging money in an extremely competitive market, it was bought and bailed out a year ago by a consortium called Connect Airways, comprising Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Aviation and Cyrus Capital Partners. However, Flybe’s ongoing losses led it to ask the British government for what was effectively a rescue loan (and technically a deferment of a massive tax bill) at the start of this year. Much to the outrage of Flybe’s rivals, the government agreed—but then it failed to follow through. According to the Independent, the end was triggered this week by a fuel supplier cutting off Flybe’s credit, which then led airports to start impounding its planes."

I hate misleading headlines like none other. Few people are going to actually read what's contained within the article. Essentially the writing was on the wall for this particular airline and it's timeline was probably sped up by the Coronavirus. The timing is awful for the passengers but is no different than when Thomas Cook collapsed not too too long ago. Now with all these headlines people are going to say "omg is this ____ airline next!?".

 

[easyas123]

Thanks to this post, I checked our April SW flights for Orange County. We bought with points in late November. We used 19,500 pots per ticket out there, just rebooked for 9,700. That saved us 40k points. The tickets back hadn’t changed, but while out there my son and husband are flying up to Oakland for the day, those tickets were booked at 7500 points, and are now 3700 each way.

Glad I checked, and the flexibility on SW is the reason they are always our #1 choice. Having to pick a seat as we board is a minor issue for free bags and the ability to cancel flights at zero cost.

Nice!

I checked our SE flights to LAS next week, but no such luck for us.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Thanks to this post, I checked our April SW flights for Orange County. We bought with points in late November. We used 19,500 pots per ticket out there, just rebooked for 9,700. That saved us 40k points. The tickets back hadn’t changed, but while out there my son and husband are flying up to Oakland for the day, those tickets were booked at 7500 points, and are now 3700 each way.

Glad I checked, and the flexibility on SW is the reason they are always our #1 choice. Having to pick a seat as we board is a minor issue for free bags and the ability to cancel flights at zero cost.

I'd love 40,000 pts back! That's awesome