slo’s WEDNESDAY 1/17 poll - Cancelled Flight(s) ✈️

[loves to dive]

I used to fly a lot in the late 70s before you could fly overseas out of Atlanta (my home airport) so I would often have to fly Atlanta to Chicago or JFK. I've spent many a night in O'Hare Airport because of snow. We were never offered another flight or a hotel, just settle in folks. I've also spent the night in the airport in Washington DC because of snow. Again, it was just settle in an sleep wherever you can. Flying out I was always able to catch a flight when they were able again the next day and since I was just going home (back then I lived in Saudi Arabia) I didn't need to arrive at any certain day or time. In Washington, I was heading back home to Athens, GA (via Atlanta) and it was over a weekend so I didn't miss any work. We had to rush to change flights once when we were flying out in December to go diving in Belize. It was going to snow the next day when our flight was scheduled in Atlanta so they were already cancelling flights. We managed to book one for like 3 hours away from the time we were booking and I was at work. I had to rush home while hubby threw all the scuba gear in the back seat of the truck. Of course, I had to tell him where everything was and what to grab. I had already packed the suitcase with our clothes. I packed the gear on the way to the airport and we just made out flight. The only way we could get out was go Atlanta to Dallas to Belize and we had to arrive the next day in Belize because we were getting on a dive live aboard (kind of like a cruise but with lots and lots of diving and no lux). They won't hold the boat for anyone. So we had an over night in Dallas and I was on the phone in the Dallas airport with a secretary in my office with her looking up the phone number of the airport in the hotel so I could try to get a room for the night. This was before smart phones. We got one and all ended o.k. but it was dicey for a while. A flight we were on coming home from Palau via Guam/Hawaii/Atlanta got grounded in Guam because of plan issues so we had to spend the night in the Guam airport, which is tiny and not equipped for people spending the night. Then we had to spend the night in Hawaii because they couldn't get us on a flight to Atlanta until the next day. They comped the hotel and because we had lots of miles, bumped us up to first class. I did have to call and let my office know I was going to be a couple of days late but we got to spend most of the next day in Hawaii and took a helicopter tour so it wasn't a bad thing.

 

[Babs Johnson]

I’ve experienced many delays due to weather or other factors, but only one cancellation. It didn’t affect me TOO much. BWI to MSP to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Upon arriving at BWI to check in, I was informed that my connecting flight to Winnipeg was cancelled. It wasn’t weather related. They booked me on the next connecting flight which was about four hours later. So I had plenty of time to explore Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.

The return flight WAS delayed by weather at MSP. It was supposed to take off around 8pm, but kept getting pushed back again and again. It finally departed around 130am.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We are in the Chicago suburbs and mostly fly out of Midway. One of our cancelled flights was to Denver. Denver airport was having a problem with weather and had closed the airport. We were already at the airport when the flight was cancelled and it was a big mess waiting to get our luggage back to us. I was able to reschedule the flight for the next day, but it turned a three night trip to see our daughter and her family into a two night trip.

The other recently cancelled flight occurred when we were in WDW. Southwest had preemptively cancelled a bunch of flights in anticipation of bad weather. We weren't able to reschedule a flight home until two days later. Luckily, we could stay in the same resort but had to switch rooms. It turned out that the storm never came and SWA didn't need to cancel our flight after all.

 

[KPeterso]

A couple times...

In 2013, my original first leg of my flight home was cancelled. I was moved to a later flight and that day the entire American Airlines system went down so my new flight was seriously delayed. Ended up getting out of MCO to Dallas, and despite being told all flights would be held, my flight was gone from Dallas so I got to spend the night there (on AA) before getting home the next day.

And then in 2022, we got stuck in Orlando due to Hurricane Ian. We were supposed to fly home the day the hurricane hit. I had rescheduled our flights a couple days before to the latest one the day after the hurricane and was lucky as that was the first one out of MCO back to home that day. I did have to use another batch of points to stay at the BWV for the extra night.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

When we lived in California, we'd fly out of Monterey Airport to SF or LA. Flights got canceled frequently. It was a problem. The one time we decided to fly out of SF, drive up and get an overnight hotel and park, our car was broken into to. My husband and many that he worked with at the time, found it difficult flying out of Monterey. I can recall a few times when husband was trying to get home, he'd get so fed up and rent a car and drive home.

 

[sam_gordon]

There was one cancellation I was hoping for but didn't get...

We were at WDW w/my parents when 9/11 happened. We were scheduled to fly out Friday (maybe Saturday). Obviously airlines, although were flying (9/11 was Tuesday), had LOTS of people and airframes out of position. Disney had already told guests that if your flight was cancelled, they'd (Disney) would extend your hotel for free. A free night? At the Poly? Please, please, PLEASE cancel! Nope, our flight out of MCO went out on time. There were maybe 50 people on a plane that seats four times that amount. Get to Atlanta and our connecting flight gets delayed, delayed, delayed, before eventually cancelling. We're put on a 6am flight the next day. It was already close to midnight, we had two kids, and knowing it would take a couple of hours to get to a hotel and settled in, then a couple of hours to get back to the airport, we elected to just sleep on the floor of ATL.

My parent's flight WAS cancelled. Instead of taking advantage of the free night at Disney, my dad elected to rent a car and drive back to Athens, Ga.

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

I don’t fly often. I’ve never had a flight cancelled (knock on wood), but my inbound flight was diverted from Cleveland to Akron due to fog. This was about 30 years ago, before cell phones and before the Akron airport had grown. There was practically no one at the Akron airport except for maintenance workers as it was about 9 pm. They literally dropped us there, shut the door and said a bus would be along to pick us up. My Mom was at the Cleveland airport to pick me up and at first, the personnel couldn’t tell her where our flight landed, so she was very concerned. Then after she found out we were in Akron, they couldn’t tell her when we would get to Cleveland.

After about a hour at Akron, passenger vans showed up to drive us to the Cleveland airport. They didn’t have enough seating for all the passengers though. Many just called taxis on their own and shared rides if they lived close to each other. It was a mess.

 

[The Mayor]

Traveling as much as I did for work I was very lucky that I only had a handful of cancelations. The worst were being stuck in Bismarck, ND for two additional nights (it was -54 degree wind chill, Bangalore, India for one night and Inchon, South Korea for one night. Since I was traveling for work they did not affect me financially.

Cancellations can real cause havoc for people but what I find more annoying and troublesome are flight time changes. I’ve had many of them recently for vacations. Book the time you want and poof it changes, sometimes multiple times. Jet Blue has caused major stress for me on our last few flights with them. The worst was when they changed our flight time three times for our family trip to WDW. There were 10 of us and I had to keep calling to change the times they bumped us in to. If I didn’t have so many points with them I’d switch airlines.

 

[PrincesCJM]

June 2022, my oldest son and I were flying home from a quick trip to Disney to celebrate some milestone birthday. I refreshed the American app shortly after flight #1 took off and saw that flight #2 was canceled. It was the last flight of the day into PWM. I got in line at DCA to take to an agent but had better luck on the phone. They couldn't get us into PWM for two days but could get us into MHT the next day. That meant, my mom had to pick us up. I had quickly booked a hotel for the night. I do wonder that if I had talked to an in-person agent, would I have been able to get them to pay for it. I did write to American later, asking for a hotel reimbursement. They gave us each miles instead. It's better than nothing.

After waiting in line for 30-40 minutes, I had moved about 3 feet. It would have been forever and both of us were too tired. Thankfully, I always pack an extra set of clothes in a carry-on. We did miss having our noise machine that night but a quick app download took care of that. When we arrived at the hotel, I overheard a staff member mention that most of their guests were people flying on American who had flights canceled.

 

[disney4us2002]

Never cancelled but delays for fog and bad icing.

 

[CynBeth]

In July our flight from Italy back to the US was canceled a few days before due to an airport strike. We knew of the possibility ahead of time so thankfully we had added extra days at the kennel and had let my manager know of the possibility that I could be missing a few extra days of work. Our original flight was on a Saturday and could not find another nonstop until Tuesday so got to spend a few extra days in Rome. We were lucky the hotel could keep us we just had to switch to a more expensive room.

 

[RedAngie]

Plenty of delays.

The only actual cancellation was on a connecting itinerary. PHL to CVG (Cincinnati) to Des Moines, Iowa. I don’t remember which leg was cancelled but it was the last connection of the evening. The pre-internet/text days so we didn’t know until we arrived at the airport.

Delta rebooked us on United connecting in Chicago instead, perhaps 45 minutes later than our originally scheduled departure.

 

[bjscheel]

First cancellation happened to us just last Friday at WDW. Major blizzard in the Midwest on Friday but our flight was to land Saturday at 3:00 pm so we weren't sure if it would be a problem. While at FOTLK I got a text that our second leg from Nashville to Omaha was cancelled. At that point I wasn't sure if all flights to OMA would be cancelled so decided to let Southwest figure out our plan. We were put on a flight that connected in DCA and landed in OMA an hour before our original one. And it went on time. We just had to get up earlier and have a longer layover, but no major inconvenience.

We had to stay with DD's in-laws overnight, wait till late Sunday morning so my SIL could meet us with our car, then were able to get within about 1/2 mile of our house before we met an impassable drift. DH went in neighbor's tractor and then started up our own. He is spending all day today moving 6+ foot drifts in the yard.

 

[georgina]

We've had a few cancelled connection flights over the years, due to weather, equipment or crew issues. Delta claimed weather so they wouldn't pay for our hotel etc, but the credit card booked through (Chase Sapphire Reserve) covered Uber to hotel, a meal, and hotel that trip. Some on the flight just spent the night at the airport. Flew out the next day.

American had an issue getting the crew to Charlotte because of bad weather somewhere else, but they covered the hotel cost (which had a free shuttle and breakfast). We had been waiting around all day and it was very late when they cancelled, they were offering to help passengers book rooms but there was a long line, I just called Hilton and they found me a nearby room quickly. Flew home the next day.

DH carries trip insurance through a scuba diving group (includes medical) since he has more potential needs. I always pay for at least part of my flights through the credit card with insurance.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

We had one cancelled last summer. We were 9 hours from home, and they were telling me a minimum of 48 hours before there was even a chance of us flying out. There were no rental cars available that evening, and also none of the many nearby hotels we tried calling or searching for online had vacancies. We ended up taking a Lyft 2 hours to another airport rental car counter and then driving home. Eventually the airline reimbursed me for the Lyft ride, the rental car, and for the cancelled leg of our flight.

 

[AussieFan8]

My daughter and I had two canceled flights during the Great Southwest Meltdown of 2022 and ended up missing Christmas at home. After our flight was canceled each night on December 23 and 24, we were scrambling for a hotel room after midnight, stood in a line from 1am-3:30am early Christmas morning trying to get on a new flight, and felt relieved when we got out on an early morning flight on December 26. If we had not, we were told we wouldn't have gotten out until at least December 30. Getting a rental car was difficult as someone mentioned above because everyone else was in the same boat. Luckily, after silently crying at the Southwest counter when I found out we wouldn't be home for Christmas, I pulled myself together enough to suggest to my daughter that we spend Christmas day at Disney Springs since it was the first day in three days that we wouldn't have to spend at the airport. We ended up having a good day. I will always remember the stress and chaos of being caught up in that mess.

 

[MIGrandma]

It’s been several years but yes, we had a flight cancelled. DH and I were vacationing in Florida and our return flight to Detroit was cancelled because of a bad snowstorm. They couldn’t get us on another flight until 2 days later. Aw, too bad…we just added a couple nights to the condo we were staying in, and 2 more days to the red convertible we had rented, no problem! . Just more sunny blue skies and warm temperatures to enjoy. We had absolutely no problem with the cancellation. Now if it would have happened to our flight from Detroit, yeah, it would have been a bummer.

 

[Meriweather]

Never had a flight cancelled, only delayed.

 

[Disturbia]

We had this happen April 2022 (Sat flight). The line for car rentals was 4-5 hours. We had to drive without car seats and grab them (among other things - groceries car chargers etc) from the nearby Walmart. Hotels in Georgia were sold out as well. One king bed for 5 of us and most of us slept on the floor. It took us over 20 hours to get back home. We reached Mon morning at 4:30 am and everyone had to go to work/school that day.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/southwest-cancelled-our-flight-with-less-than-12-hours-😡.3878174/

 

[fla4fun]

I have only flown for three vacations in my life. No cancellations but the second vacation started with a delayed departure due to storms in Orlando. It was a non stop to my destination so it wasn’t an issue.