Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - USAir and long term booking

What is the sense here about the risks in booking an international flight on USAir for next April? Seems that they (and other airlines) are downsizing for economic reasons and flights will undoubtedly be cut back. Our flight would hook up to a river cruise, so cancellation becomes a real problem! Any thoughts?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by kush1:
What is the sense here about the risks in booking an international flight on USAir for next April? Seems that they (and other airlines) are downsizing for economic reasons and flights will undoubtedly be cut back. Our flight would hook up to a river cruise, so cancellation becomes a real problem! Any thoughts?</font>

Is it one of the Uniworld cruises? I would be amazed if you were able to get airfare for less then they were offering, especially if it started at one port and ended at another as most of the river cruises over there tend to do.

If you book your own then you should probably consider getting in a day early just in case. This way if they move a flight a couple of hours, it's no huge deal. If you were scheduled to get in at 2 and the boat leaves at 7 and they move you to a flight getting in at 8, then it's a major issue.

Same day I wouldn't do it, but a day early I would if the price was close and I had some compelling reason to fly usair.

It is a Uniworld cruise, but it starts and ends in Amsterdam. Also, the actual cruise doesn't start until the day after the flight would arrive, so a few hours flight delay won't matter. My concern is USAir eliminating one of our flights for economic reasons. The source of the good rate is flights.com (I know nothing about them) and its about $300 less than Uniworld or USAir itself.

See, the other issue is if you book with Uniworld and something happens then they may be able to get you on something else to get you to Amsterdam. If something happens and US Air stops flying there will be a lot of passengers looking for alternative flights, and your group discount consilidator ticket will be the last one they will want to endorse over, if it is endorsable at all.