Northwest canceled my flight home

[Peanut]

I just found out that Northwest canceled my flight home. I bought e-tickets and I was just checking my intinerary and saw that my return flight was canceled!! NWA never contacted me to inform me of this so I called them immediately. I was ANGRY! And when I inquired as to why no one contacted me, the woman responded that it had recently been cancelled. How convenient. Even if that were the case, they have my phone number and email address, I should have been contacted IMMEDIATELY! I am still ticked off. I also asked for some compensation and they declined to do anything for me. They played their trump card that I should be more sympathetic in these terrible times. How dare she say that too me!!! She doesn't know me at all. All I wanted was to be contacted for a flight change. Is that too much to ask! UGH!! I am so MAD!

 

[Firefighter Mickey]

I think you're expecting way to much, and asking for compensation in addition to rebooking doesn't seem to be called for in this case.

Flight cancellations can happen at any time - I've had a flight effectively cancelled after takeoff (we returned to the airport because of mechanical problems). I've had a flight cancelled while waiting to board it.

As travelers, we all need to take a little responsibilty keeping track of our flights, especially knowing what the airlines are going thru right now.

Besides, even if NWA wasn't able to notify you (and we don't know that they weren't going to try - you just found out about it before they managed to contact you), you would certainly have found out about it when you checked in for your flight out. If I'm traveling, I always check to make sure about my return fllight, since it's unlikely that the airline will be able to track me down.

Sorry, but I just think you are wrong to be so upset about this, and I sincerly hope that you still have a good vacation.

 

[TrudyZ]

Peanut:

Where you on the 7:40 p.m. or flight out of Orlando? We were too and it got cancelled.

Since mid-September, when the airlines announced cuts, I have been checking the NWA website. A few days after the announcements, the flight didn't show up under reservations any more. I called and asked, and was told that it was probably full. I said, "that's funny, I checked, and that flight is full every day of the week for the month of October then." They wouldn't give any indication that it was going to be cancelled and said they couldn't do anything about it then--unless I wanted to pay $100 and have the flight changed. I kept calling back every few days, and after 4 calls (several days later), I finally got someone who said " you're right, it is going to be cancelled, although it isn't offical yet." I believe she said it would be official on October 1st. She then very nicely put us on a earlier flight--without charging us.

The only reason she did change it was that I kept my cool and calmly explained that I had already called several times, and since we were traveling with a small child I wanted to make sure we got a decent flight time and all of our seats together. Technically, she didn't have to do anything until it was offically cancelled. I believe we are now on the 4:50 p.m. flight.

I don't think you have a shot at any compensation; but you may want to check and make sure that you didn't get rescheduled on the 6:00 a.m. flight out of Orlando!

 

[Peanut]

TrudyZ, I was on the 7:25pm flight from Orlando. I'm now on the 4:50 pm flight. It's not so bad.

But I'm still upset with them. They won't give me any compensation and that's NOT what's upseting me the most. I just thought I'd ask. My REAL problem lies with the lack of communication. I fully understand that all airlines are cancelling flights right now, and I expected this to happen. They just need to inform people of changes. That's my problem with the airline, not the fact that there wasn't any compensation. I was a little perturbed with the woman's response about how I'm not being sympathetic, when in fact I am very sorry that the whole country has to go through ALL of this. Everything that has happened to the US saddens me greatly. And I have done a lot of supportive things to try to help out, and I still feel as though I haven't done enough. I don't need an airline to tell me how to act or feel. I lose enough sleep over this and have cried a good number of tears too. I apologize to any one that I may be offending here because that is certainly not my objective. I just want to be treated with the same respect that I receive from other businesses.

 

[ducklite]

Did you buy your tickets directly from NW, or through Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity or a travel agency?

Anne

 

[Firefighter Mickey]

Did they have a chance to notify you? Most, if not all airlines will make an attempt to notify people of a flight cancellation (assuming they have a way to contact you). However, because of the shear volume of people they must contact, it can take some time to get notification from the airline. Even on a normal day there must be many, many cancellations, now multiply that by what's going on in the industry right now.

A couple of things to consider - a lot of the airlines are operating with reduced staff. Continental for example laid off all of the ticketing/reservation people they had in Denver (some 400 people as I recall); these are probably also the same people that would be attempting to contact travelers in the case of a cancelled flight. Also, it's more important to try and contact people that have flights tomorrow which have been cancelled rather than people that have flights next week; so there's a good chance that you were in the queue to get contacted, but they just hadn't gotten to you yet. And, depending on when your return flight was, the airline may have just figured that it would be easier to notify you when you checked in for your outbound flight.

The good news is because you were being an aware traveler, you noticed that the flight was cancelled and so you were able to take proactive & corrective action. This has 2 benefits - it reduced the workload for the airline people that are probably scrambling to make sense of this mess (thus allowing them to contact other people in a more timely fashion), and because you probably called in early, you had more options available for rebooking.

Just going to share one other item. I also found out recently the Frontier had cancelled our flights (both outbound and return). Frontier had not contacted me yet. I called up and wasn't mad, had an absolutely wonderful rebooking experience with a great ticketing agent named Linda, who really went out of her way to accomodate our travel plans, even to the extent of going ahead and assigning seats for us on the new flights and the call ended with Linda being happy and me being happy.

 

[candaceg]

I was also supposed to be on the 7:40 PM flight from MCO to DTW, leaving Oct. 30. I got a notice in the mail on Wednesday of this week notifying me that my flight changed to the 4:50 pm flight. I didn't have to do a thing. I am annoyed at losing a few hours of park time, but under the circumstances, we can't really complain.

 

[seashoreCM]

I think this is something we can all try.

After your flight is cancelled days (or weeks) in advance, and you don't like what they automatically resecheduled you on (or they did not automatically reschedule you) ...

First choose an alternate flight you like. If they give it to you, you are done.

********
Otherwise:

Call the same airline and make a brand new one way reservation for a replacement flight of your choice. Don't pay yet but tell them to hold it for 24 hours. I would expect that, if you succeed in doing this, the flight you chose is not sold out.

Then hang up and call again. Refer to your old ticket and say you want your replacement flight to be what you just reserved brand new.

The purpose is to prove whether a replacement flight of your choice is still available. Whether or not they are required to, they really ought to give you your next best choice of flight at no extra charge.

If their choice is on the same day but your choice is not,you are not entitled to a free hotel room.

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*no longer exists

 

[Firefighter Mickey]

Sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go thru.

My experience has been that if I call, and am nice, the ticketing agent is usually very helpful and will let me choose a better flight without any charge, if such a flight is available.

When Frontier cancelled our flights, the outbound flight that they rebooked us on was fine; the return flight had us coming back a day earlier, and I asked if we could come back a day later instead. She checked, they had 2 flights available the next day, but the early flight was very full, the later flight not nearly as full - I said we'll take the later flight. Poof. All changed; no charge.