Timing of Airline Flight Schedule Changes?

[freewill]

For those who have had AirTran (or any other carrier--but AirTran seems to get way more gripes about this here on the Dis) change their flight schedule on them after booking, when did those changes occur?

I mean, do these types of scheduling changes usually happen several months ahead of departure, or a few weeks ahead of time, or the night before? Or is there no pattern nor rhyme & reason to this at all?

Just wondering what people's experiences have been -- and if schedules are perhaps a bit less likely to change as you get closer to departure date?

Thanks!!

 

[ancestry]

Last year our biggest schedule change happened about four months out with Air Tran. The flight change was so drastic that we actually ended up adjusting the dates of our entire trip because of it.

After that Air Tran "tweaked" the times three more times - almost monthly. By tweaking I mean the times changed by 15-20 minutes or so.

 

[TillyMarigold]

United/USAir (code share) changed my flight about 6 weeks before the trip (I had booked 5 months before). I had booked 7:45 ABQ>PHX, then 10:10 PHX>MCO arriving at about 4 pm. They changed it to 6:00 ABQ>PHX, 2:00 PHX>ORD>MCO, arriving at 11 pm! But it was, as you asked, just them changing the flight schedule; the flight numbers didn't change.

They let me re-book for free on a totally different route (ABQ>DEN>MCO) for no fees. They're actually required by law to get you where you're going within a certain amount of time after the time you've paid to get there, unless the change is caused by weather.

The new route ended up getting changed too, but it was less inconvenient ... I think we left 45 minutes earlier and arrived 30 minutes earlier, giving us a layover that was 15 minutes longer. And our return flight got moved up 15 minutes earlier and our layover extended 30 minutes so we got home 45 minutes later. Both of those changes (to the new ABQ>DEN>MCO route and the return MCO>DEN>ABQ that I'd had all along) occurred maybe 2 weeks to a month before the trip.