What Airlines Have History of Changing Flights?

[keishashadow]

Im all too familiar w/Air Tran's history, they've cancelled service out of MIA to PIT in June/July, now only out of FLL & the return flight I had booked changed enough that i just cancelled the whole reservation & going to start anew.

SWA's prices are high, I'm pricing out the other airlines.

Anybody know if any of the other carriers are in same 'league' as AirTran as to cancellations/flight changes?

Considering USAir/United or Delta (no problems last i booked them); anybody have any experience with them (or can recommend other airlines to check) into Florida? Unfortunately, Jet Blue's schedule doesn't work for us.

 

[taitai]

Pretty much all airlines will tweak flights a bit. Air Tran does some fairly significant changes but those allow the airline to match their supply and demand curves and keep fares low. Delta is making some big changes now as it absorbs Northwest.

Southwest tends to not make changes once their schedule it out. However, to compensate, they don't release schedules that far in advance.

If you are booking several months in advance, anticipate some sort of change on any major airline. Often, it is just minutes. Occasionally, it can be more significant.

 

[OKW Lover]

Short answer - all of them.

In today's air travel marketplace, you just have to accept that the further ahead you book your flights, the more likely it is that your flight times will change. However, the changes are usually not significant as far as departure/arrival times go.

 

[keishashadow]

thanx, guess it is the new norm for most airlines to run effeciently. I don't mind dealing w/an hour or so variance, just need to make sure DH is back home in time for work after cruise. AirTran has changed their schedule so the current departure time would be iffy.

 

[DVC-Don]

All of them cept Southwest.

 

[goofy4tink]

All of them cept Southwest.

Absolutely agree!!! Every single time I have flown Delta, there has been at least one change in my flights. Even JB has made a change or two...just not as drastic as Delta.
SW is the only airline that allows me to book the flight I want and feel secure in the knowledge that it isn't going to change.
Basically, the less time between booking the flight and the actual flight, the less time there is for any changes.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Actually... Southwest changed their flight schedules in September and as recently as January.

All of them cept Southwest.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

All of them. I have had flights cancelled on both Northwest and Continental

 

[DebbieB]

I flew Delta PIT-MCO in early December, I booked the tickets in April. Our flights changed several times, luckily for the better.

 

[BobH]

I read an old posting on this board that warned about frequent big changes flying Delta from Boston to Orlando. Delta just changed our going & returning flights by 4+ hrs causing us to arrive 4 hours later and return 4 hours earlier which pretty much wipes out the first and last days of a short 5 day vacation. In the past 30 years of flying to Orlando I have seen quite a few schedule adjustments by American, Jet Blue, Southwest , Us Airways, Air Tran etc.that usually resulted in less than an hour change - I have just tried Delta in the past year and I am appalled at what they will do to your itinerary. And to top it all off I found out about the change toally by accident. They never notified us by the email address that I had provided them.
Anyone else have this particular experience with Delta? I willl probably avoid them in the future.

 

[the chick & the duck]

I read an old posting on this board that warned about frequent big changes flying Delta from Boston to Orlando. Delta just changed our going & returning flights by 4+ hrs causing us to arrive 4 hours later and return 4 hours earlier which pretty much wipes out the first and last days of a short 5 day vacation. In the past 30 years of flying to Orlando I have seen quite a few schedule adjustments by American, Jet Blue, Southwest , Us Airways, Air Tran etc.that usually resulted in less than an hour change - I have just tried Delta in the past year and I am appalled at what they will do to your itinerary. And to top it all off I found out about the change toally by accident. They never notified us by the email address that I had provided them.
Anyone else have this particular experience with Delta? I willl probably avoid them in the future.

Delta pretty much ruined flying for us. Two years ago, we booked direct flights from Louisville to Orlando 6 months out. About 2 months before our trip, out of curiousity, I thought I'd check to see if our flights were full. I was in complete shock when I discovered not only had our direct flights been changed to flights with stops, but that we were going to have to go through Atlanta on the way home with our 2 kids, 5 and 2 at the time. And as an added frustration to the whole thing, on the way to Orlando, our connecting flight in Cincinnati was scheduled to leave before our flight out of Louisville was. How is that supposed to work?? We were NEVER contacted about these changes either. My husband called Delta and we were able to get our money refunded. We had always driven before and luckily it's a doable drive for us. The thing that frustrates me the most with airlines is that they can up and change your flights on you but if you want to make a change, it's costly. We'll just be in control of our own travel from now and and we like it that way.

 

[BobH]

Thanks for the reply and sorry to hear what a bad time you had with Delta. I will not be using them again either. My wife & I just took our children and first granchild to WDW over Christmas vacation, and would not have wanted to have put my grandaughter and family through the schedule changes that they have decided to inflict on us for the next trip we are taking in May. We only started using Delta accidentally at Christmas time because they had a non-stop flight that was less expensive than the other carriers.
I learned that Delta seems to have a policy (at least they did yesterday) of not charging you for a change that causes more than a 1 hour difference in your flight. But that is of little consolation when you are trying to transport young children with a minimum of stress. I can't understand why they meddle with flights to popular destinations. In our case I think Delta baited people with a flight at a comfortable hour (10:40am) and once they got enough customers they eliminated that flight and switched a lot of people to later less popular connecting flights - that you could have actually purchased much cheaper if you had booked them originally. And after this they wonder why Southwest and Jet blue are taking all their customers.

 

[the chick & the duck]

I totally agree. I think they lure you in with the great rates and times and then change them once they have your money. Like I said, we've just decided since we can drive it, we do because at least we are in control of our travel. And yes I know there are traffic, weather, etc. issues that we can't control but I mean if we decide we want to leave at a different time than we originally planned, we can. My parents have had similar issues the last two years flying USAir going to Aruba and not been contacted either time of the change. Last year, we pulled up the reservation the night before to discover the change. Had we not done that, my parents would have missed their flight.

 

[NancyIL]

Flying Delta in 2006 caused me far more grief than AirTran's schedule changing ever did.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I can't understand why they meddle with flights to popular destinations. In our case I think Delta baited people with a flight at a comfortable hour (10:40am) and once they got enough customers they eliminated that flight and switched a lot of people to later less popular connecting flights - that you could have actually purchased much cheaper if you had booked them originally. And after this they wonder why Southwest and Jet blue are taking all their customers.

You would, respectfully, be wrong. Airlines change flights and flight schedules for a number of reasons. Baiting customers with misinformation is NOT one of them.

Why in the world would an airline with ENOUGH customers paying to depart at a given time on a given itinerary CHOOSE to cancel THAT flight? Realistically? It could be something like operating efficiency. It could be rising fuel costs. It could be the airports raising take-off and landing fees during the times that flight was scheduled to, well, take off and land.

Flight schedule changes happen a LOT - usually quarterly - especially when the flights are released almost a YEAR in advance.

Airlines notify passengers in the order affected. Say the 10:40 departure in the second quarter was cancelled and changed to a 2:30 departure. They're going to contact the April passengers FIRST, right? The ones leaving at the beginning of April, then later in the month, then move on to May... and they're not even going to do THIS until they're sure there won't be MORE changes. Manpower, efficiency, and all that.

And they DO allow passengers to make changes to their flights under these conditions at no cost to the passenger. They don't HAVE to; there's no Rule 240 that covers this.

I can't understand why they meddle with flights to popular destinations.

Would you be happier if they only 'meddled with' less popular destinations, i.e. destinations that don't affect you? Because so-called popular leisure destinations like Orlando are actually money-losers for most airlines.

My husband called Delta and we were able to get our money refunded.

When driving is not an option, or not a reasonable one, it's always sensible to make sure whatever alternate travel arrangements one can make are affordable before just plain cancelling an existing flight - rather than attempting to work with the airline to make alternate arrangements. It's not as if Delta went out of business (thinking SkyBus right off the top of my head). They HAVE other flights.

 

[connie1042]

DELTA They have changed my flight to Orlando for July 2110 3 times so far. They took me off a non-stop flight. I called and they changed it back, but keep an eye on your flights.At one point they had me Flying from MN to Denver, then to Orlando. I DON"T think so!!!! My husband left for Denver yesterday and they had changed his flight 4 times. It just crazy. I will say we were notified each time.

 

[Lewisc]

Actually... Southwest changed their flight schedules in September and as recently as January.

SW changes some flights every schedule change. SW rarely changes a flight (other then weather related) once it's on the schedule. A few times SW cancelled a flight mid schedule to free up an aircraft for a new city.

The difference is SW doesn't accept bookings until their schedule is firm.


OP thought SW is charging too much. Airlines that are selling money losing fares have more motivation to constantly tweak flights.

 

[BobH]

No comment - except your "Aesop" characterization says it all.....

 

[traveljunkie2]

Our trip to Orlando was booked about 8 months in advance. About 4 months later they canceled all of our flights. Then they rebooked us (without notifying us) on flights that had us on layovers of 11+ hours each way. Eleven hours in an airport with two kids and a disabled passenger? Yeah, right. Thankfully I happened to check the reservation and noticed this horrific change. When I called to change the flights, my options were very limited because the fare that I had booked was so cheap that they didn't offer similar classes on many flights. We ended up arriving 6 hours earlier than planned and leaving 5 hours later than planned (which screwed up our rental car res. big time). When I booked our flights originally, we had a travel time of about 7 hours, with one layover each way. After all was said and done, we had to leave home on a 6 am flight (ugh!) and return home on flights with two layovers, traveling over 12 hours to get home.

Besides messing up the flights, of course our seat assignements were all messed up, too. They even had the nerve to put all 5 of us on "standby" for our connecting flight on the way to Orlando, even though I had checked in online the night before and my tickets said "Confirmed" and I had seat assignment (although spread all over the plane). Thank goodness we arrived at 4 am and had a great desk agent who called our connecting city and was able to fix it.

I have flown many, many times on just about every domestic airline. I will never fly Delta again.

 

[10_Kyle_10]

Last September we flew Jet Blue and they changed our flights 3 times. The last change the time was a difference was like 6 hours difference from our original time.

I called and they moved us on a flight that was like 1 hour from our originally scheduled time. I thought this was odd.

Ps. we weren't charged anything.