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It's getting to be a problem to arrange travel because of flights.

easyrider

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I know we are not the only ones that are experiencing this. Our newest problem was getting home and finding our flights have been changed to where they don't work. The flights departure and return are about a 150 mile drive and include a rental car and hotel stay. Flights to and from our airport are often delayed because of winter weather and the night flight was cancelled because of employee issues so our recent trips include a rental car to get to and from the airports.

Anyway, I looked at my email last night and found all of our flights were changed. I was able to fix the flight problem by returning to a different airport. The departure flight isn't ideal because we arrive in the evening instead of the early afternoon. Modifying all of the reservations to pair with the new flights took a couple of hours. My bet is they will change our flights again before winter. Flying has become the worst part of our trips, imo.

Bill
 

JohnPaul

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Fortunately most of ours are by car.
 

GetawaysRus

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I'll start a "can you top this."

We have an upcoming Delta flight in October. I'm a planner, so I reserved this flight last November or December (in other words, way in advance). So far, Delta has changed the flight time 7 times. So, can you top that?

There are 2 other flights on this trip. The initial flight is on American Airlines. AA has changed that flight 3 times. As a result of the changes, now we have to get to the airport at 4:15-4:30 AM.

The final flight home, on Delta, was moved to a horribly inconvenient time. I didn't want to get home after midnight. I finally had to cancel it and switch to American.

So I agree. It's worse than it has ever been.
 

Sugarcubesea

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I know we are not the only ones that are experiencing this. Our newest problem was getting home and finding our flights have been changed to where they don't work. The flights departure and return are about a 150 mile drive and include a rental car and hotel stay. Flights to and from our airport are often delayed because of winter weather and the night flight was cancelled because of employee issues so our recent trips include a rental car to get to and from the airports.

Anyway, I looked at my email last night and found all of our flights were changed. I was able to fix the flight problem by returning to a different airport. The departure flight isn't ideal because we arrive in the evening instead of the early afternoon. Modifying all of the reservations to pair with the new flights took a couple of hours. My bet is they will change our flights again before winter. Flying has become the worst part of our trips, imo.

Bill

We have been having the same problem, for our flight in December, it has been changed twice so far and for our trip in March we have decided to drive to FL because all of the flight would take about 8 hours, we could not find direct flights in our date range...
 

pedro47

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We are not traveling outside of the state of Virginia because of the many cancellations and changes of airlines fight schedules.
 

PigsDad

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We are not traveling outside of the state of Virginia because of the many cancellations and changes of airlines fight schedules.
What cancellations and changes have you personally experienced that has led you to this decision? I ask because I have flown over a dozen flights so far this year and have personally experienced only a couple minor delays, but if I was to base my perception on the sensationalized news stories that have been out there, I would think that these "unprecedented" flight cancellations and changes are so prevalent that traveling is horrible these days. When you actually apply some critical thinking and do a bit of math, you will see that these airline issues have barely moved the needle when it comes to the probability that you will have any significant issue with any trip.

Kurt
 

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I have flown 10 round trips this year. Had one issue which was weather related and required an overnight delay. Had lots of flight changes after booking, but none threw the schedule off enough to cause me to cancel the trip.
The media loves to stir things up. As more and more media sites pop up, the intensity keeps increasing to see who can scare you the most, paint the bleakest picture, and provide the most misinformation. This is from all sides.
If you want to know the latest on airline issues for any day, use flightaware.com. It has the best data on cancelations, hubs with delays, upcoming weather issues expected.
 

Sandy VDH

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1. ALWAYS assume that air schedule will change, and often. If you think they are cast in stone, think again.
2. Buy a ticket early based on pricing you can live with. Rebook if pricing has dropped, given that for now at least, change fees are gone.
3. WHEN schedules change, figure out the best alternative available, and be prepared to TELL the airline what that is, don't let the airline tell you. They have the power to make fare class allocation adjustments that you are not able to do. So ONLINE may not offer you the best options, they may not show flights that could be purchased at a higher fare class, but the airline could make accommodations for this without charging you.
4. Set Up Notifications, so you know of flight changes
5. Deal with the reality of the current situaiton, getting frustrated with the airline is not going to help resolve your situation.
 

csodjd

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We flew all around Europe this summer.

Initially my flight booked through Virgin on Delta, Seattle to London, was abruptly canceled about two months before we left. I rebooked using miles on AA, but it was 135k miles each (business) rather than the 60k each I had on the Virgin flight. While on the trip we had one flight, London-Amsterdam-Dublin on KLM get canceled on us that I had booked with miles. We went online to Aer Lingus and booked a non-stop for about $125 per person. We've gone to/from Hawaii 4 times in 2022 and other than a few small schedule changes, an hour earlier/later kind of thing, no problems on either AA or HA.
 

beejaybeeohio

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I will see how our YYC-DFW-CLE flights on AA go, but our UA CLE-ORD-PDX flights went just fine- a very short mechanical delay out of ORD that did not affect the scheduled arrival.
 

PigsDad

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Good advice. I wanted to comment on one of your points:

3. WHEN schedules change, figure out the best alternative available, and be prepared to TELL the airline what that is, don't let the airline tell you. They have the power to make fare class allocation adjustments that you are not able to do. So ONLINE may not offer you the best options, they may not show flights that could be purchased at a higher fare class, but the airline could make accommodations for this without charging you.
I fly Southwest most of the time, and when Southwest changes a flight time / routing, they have an excellent online option to easily change your flight to any available flight, even within a few days either side of the original flight, for free. Just pick your new flight and you're done. No calling necessary.

For example, we did have an October flight on SW change on us a few weeks ago. The new flight time was a couple hours earlier. When we booked the flight, we chose to fly on a Monday because the fares were significantly cheaper, but after this flight time change, we were able to change our flight to Sunday (which we originally wanted) and got a much better flight time and routing even though the fare was almost double of our original flight. A definite win for us!

Kurt
 

easyrider

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We use Alaska Airlines for most of our flights because our local airport is exclusively served by Alaska Airlines. In the past there were four daily flights. Now we have one flight in and one flight out and no night flights. Now it seems better to drive to a large airport which usually means spending the night the day before the flight. To do this I originally used an offsite parking lot near the airport which costs about $10 a day but decided that our trips are long enough that renting a car made sense because of price and door dings.

The other reasons we are having problems is that we use Alaska Airlines credit cards , companion fares and miles and Alaska Airlines has a pilot and staff shortage. I might need to explore other carrier options.

Bill
 

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The other reasons we are having problems is that we use Alaska Airlines credit cards , companion fares and miles and Alaska Airlines has a pilot and staff shortage. I might need to explore other carrier options.
Same here. We have been flying EUG to Hawaii using our companion fares for a long time, but the flight times have become increasingly inconvenient, and their prices seem to have increased disproportionately to other airlines serving the Hawaiian islands. We ended up booking our late winter trip to Big Island via Delta going and United coming back.
 

Sandy VDH

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Good advice. I wanted to comment on one of your points:


I fly Southwest most of the time, and when Southwest changes a flight time / routing, they have an excellent online option to easily change your flight to any available flight, even within a few days either side of the original flight, for free. Just pick your new flight and you're done. No calling necessary.

For example, we did have an October flight on SW change on us a few weeks ago. The new flight time was a couple hours earlier. When we booked the flight, we chose to fly on a Monday because the fares were significantly cheaper, but after this flight time change, we were able to change our flight to Sunday (which we originally wanted) and got a much better flight time and routing even though the fare was almost double of our original flight. A definite win for us!

Kurt

It might be available online, as an automated change in flights option. But I have seen cases where other flights that are better for me, just don't show up online because of a fare class constraint. If online then great, no calls are needed. My path of choice. I was just mentioning this because I often check what a newly purchased ticket may offer instead of just changing a ticket. I have often found flights closer to my original time or a direct flight vs a connecting flight that is NOT offered via online. Online is my first mode, but just because it is NOT online offered to you, it might still be available. But it might require a call.
 

vacationtime1

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We use Alaska Airlines for most of our flights because our local airport is exclusively served by Alaska Airlines. In the past there were four daily flights. Now we have one flight in and one flight out and no night flights. Now it seems better to drive to a large airport which usually means spending the night the day before the flight. To do this I originally used an offsite parking lot near the airport which costs about $10 a day but decided that our trips are long enough that renting a car made sense because of price and door dings.

The other reasons we are having problems is that we use Alaska Airlines credit cards , companion fares and miles and Alaska Airlines has a pilot and staff shortage. I might need to explore other carrier options.

Bill
Same here. We have been flying EUG to Hawaii using our companion fares for a long time, but the flight times have become increasingly inconvenient, and their prices seem to have increased disproportionately to other airlines serving the Hawaiian islands. We ended up booking our late winter trip to Big Island via Delta going and United coming back.
+1

Alaska has essentially ceded the Oakand <--> Hawaii market (all islands) to Southwest. Alaska used to have multiple non-stops out of Oakland (a small and usable airport); now one must fly via SF or San Jose, usually with inconvenient times.
 

easyrider

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I fly Southwest most of the time, and when Southwest changes a flight time / routing, they have an excellent online option to easily change your flight to any available flight, even within a few days either side of the original flight, for free

So what do you do when your reservation is on Friday but the new schedule gets you there on Sunday ? I actually expect an airline to get us to our destination on the day I purchased our airfare for.

Bill
 

pedro47

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Non-stop flights are becoming harder to book. IMHO
An example to travel to Orlando, Fl out of the Norfolk, Va airport flying
Southwest you will be flying to the Baltimore airport (BWI) than to Orlando,Fl.
 

PigsDad

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It might be available online, as an automated change in flights option. But I have seen cases where other flights that are better for me, just don't show up online because of a fare class constraint. If online then great, no calls are needed. My path of choice. I was just mentioning this because I often check what a newly purchased ticket may offer instead of just changing a ticket. I have often found flights closer to my original time or a direct flight vs a connecting flight that is NOT offered via online. Online is my first mode, but just because it is NOT online offered to you, it might still be available. But it might require a call.
Understand that may be the case for other airlines, but I have never seen that for Southwest -- it presents all of the flight options and does not hide anything when rebooking online. Of course it is always best to check, but haven't seen that problem w/ SW.

Kurt
 

Luanne

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Good advice. I wanted to comment on one of your points:


I fly Southwest most of the time, and when Southwest changes a flight time / routing, they have an excellent online option to easily change your flight to any available flight, even within a few days either side of the original flight, for free. Just pick your new flight and you're done. No calling necessary.

For example, we did have an October flight on SW change on us a few weeks ago. The new flight time was a couple hours earlier. When we booked the flight, we chose to fly on a Monday because the fares were significantly cheaper, but after this flight time change, we were able to change our flight to Sunday (which we originally wanted) and got a much better flight time and routing even though the fare was almost double of our original flight. A definite win for us!

Kurt
Sometimes this works with SW. Last year we were going to fly to Providence RI. At Midway (Chicago) our flight to Providence was cancelled. Could not change online as there was nothing available. Couldn't call as the wait time was hours long. We finally decided to forget Providence and fly to NYC instead. Required us to get to O'Hare and take a United flight. This is unusual for SW, but it was that weekend in October that they had horrendous problems.
 

Ken555

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Hey, sometimes flight changes work to your advantage. For instance, I was scheduled to return to LA today from Maui but SWA delayed my flight by 25 minutes and offered to change to another day at no additional fee. So, I decided to stay on Maui for another five nights - good use of my banked SOs so I booked a unit at the Westin and extended my car rental at just $46 per day. This is especially good timing since LA is still suffering from high heat and I’d rather be in Maui! :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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Passepartout

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Add my voice to the chorus. Time was, our local airport was served by Delta- 4 flights a day, all to SLC (their Western hub) Free parking and virtually zero hassle with security (50 pax planes- how long can it take?) Now there is one flight a day and it doesn't mesh with anything!
Now we drive to Boise. More flights, More airlines. But now we have to use multiple airlines due to schedule. Alaska outbound- AA back. Or United. Or SW.

Problem is, it's a crapshoot. One time you look and all the schedules line up, then one gets changed over and over.

I hope that the airlines' hiring push gets staffing up to what works, and all the pent-up demand from travelers starts to be satisfied. But it isn't happening yet.
 

melissy123

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Southwest used to fly nonstop from San Diego to all of the Hawaiian Islands. no more. Now Honolulu is the only nonstop. Lots of daily flights still but all require a layover now if flying to Lihue or Kahului or Kona.
 

mdurette

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I pretty much exclusively fly Southwest, Jet Blue and Frontier. So far, any changes have only been adjustments of time - by less than an hour.

What I am finding though now is needing to search all 3 for non stops to our destination. There are certainly alot less of them now.
 

linsj

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Judging from the comments here, I'm fortunate to live near O'Hare, a United hub. I fly United almost exclusively; it's been decades since I've been on a different airline domestically. Internationally, I occasionally have to book a partner airline. The only flight changes I've had to deal with have been minor timing issues that rarely require rebooking.
 

slip

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Judging from the comments here, I'm fortunate to live near O'Hare, a United hub. I fly United almost exclusively; it's been decades since I've been on a different airline domestically. Internationally, I occasionally have to book a partner airline. The only flight changes I've had to deal with have been minor timing issues that rarely require rebooking.

That's how it was for us when we lived in Wisconsin, except we flew out of Madison. We never wanted to drive another 4 hours home after flying to Chicago. So I never worried about direct flights because we always had to change planes anyway.

We would have some delays or changes once in a while but nothing too bad. Maybe we were just lucky all those years. I have had more delays island hopping here in Hawaii. Sometimes the delays are longer than the flights. :D
 
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