MilesBuzz! - Delta Refuses Compensation for Canceled Flight

What's up with Delta? Tonight they canceled flight #4554 leaving from Atlanta headed to J in New York City. They said that it was being canceled due to weather. What a crock. We called our car service to tell them about the cancellation, and they were surprised and said there was no problem with flight arrivals in JFK but when they checked on the flight they were told that the plane was having mechanical causing a delay. Our rep called once again once the flight was officially canceled and was told it was canceled due to weather. Delta is putting these passengers on standby for the next flight leaving 1 1/2 hour later and arriving in Newark. I find it very interesting that if the flight was in fact canceled due to weather why are all other scheduled flights arriving in JFK and how is it safe for the Newark flight to leave as scheduled going to the same geographical area? I would appreciate any advice as to handle this matter with Delta. I believe that we are entitled to some sort of compensation especially considering our chances of getting a seat on the flight to Newark seem slim to none.

[This message has been edited by Always Travel Ready (edited 04-14-2002).]

Is it possible that the inbound flight into Atlanta is the problem?

Ask for an involuntary refund (Rule 260 I believe). You may have to add some of your own money to buy a ticket on another airline. Or take the standby offered.

This happens all the time in Alaska. It's usually because there are not enough passengers on the flight.

I've had the 10:30 flight from Barrow to Anchorage cancelled due to "mechanical difficulties." They just rebooked me on the 7pm! That's 8 1/2 hours. I asked if it was just delayed since it was mechanical and they said "No. Cancelled." Of course this was at about 9:30. They already knew they couldn't get the plane fixed.

I usually just go with it up here but that bugged me because it was a Saturday. I had been gone for awhile and had to be at work on Monday. The flight arrived around 10pm so I basically had Sunday for my weekend (which included doing all the laundry from the trip!).

I'd say it sucks but 1 1/2 hours isn't that long. Maybe I'm just used to it. I usually plan on about an hour delay of some sort.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
Ask for an involuntary refund (Rule 260 I believe).</font>
The rule is actually Rule 240. (http://www.mytravelrights.com/travellaw.cfm?ai=3) If weather causes a flight cancellation you aren't entitled to compensation.

You should really post this on the DL board. There are people there that should be able to tell you the real reason for the cancellation.

Undoubtedly good advice about getting specific help on the DL forum. BUT, I think there is a global issue here as well. There have been many flights I've had cancelled where the official excuse was 'weather' - at least that's what the passengers in the area were told. I have suspected on several of these that weather was not at all the reason, and that perhaps they were stating this precisely to avoid anyone trying to exercise Rule240. Notable in my memory was a flight to BOS where there was no weather anywhere on east coast.. none in the departing city, clear as a bell in BOS, no thunder boomers anywhere on the weather channel (which I watched while cooling my jets in the US club for several hours waiting for the next flight).

Do you think this happens? And how can you verify the real reason - since I would think they couldn't get away with using a false weather claim in any official way.

Update still in Atlanta now 8AM my original flight should have left at 8:10 PM. Have been in the airport since 6:00 hoping to get out on standby to flights have left with no room. All Delta gave was a $10 food voucher and a discount coupon for the Hilton. According to our car service in NY all flights were arriving in JKF with no problem last night. When I questioned this Delta said this was smaller plane and it was too dangerous to fly. Interesting as the weather was not a problem for Delta's other flights or other airlines

[This message has been edited by Always Travel Ready (edited 04-15-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Family flyer:
(Originally posted by JS:
Ask for an involuntary refund (Rule 260 I believe).)
The rule is actually Rule 240. (http://www.mytravelrights.com/travellaw.cfm?ai=3) If weather causes a flight cancellation you aren't entitled to compensation.
</font>

No, involuntary refunds are covered by Rule 260.

http://www.delta.com/pdfs/contract_of_carriage.pdf

Weather, ATC, strike, etc. (force majeure), do not nullify Rule 240 or 260 -- what you lose is a free hotel room. You always have the right to get an involuntary refund if you cannot be re-accommodated within a reasonable amount of time.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
No, involuntary refunds are covered by Rule 260.

You always have the right to get an involuntary refund if you cannot be re-accommodated within a reasonable amount of time.</font>


Is 1 1/2 hours not reasonable?

Remember that weather at the city of origin of the [b]aircraft[b] may cause your delay or cancellation. For instance, a month or so ago, my flight MSP-EWR was delayed 5 hours because of weather in DEN, where the aircraft originated.

Now, I'm not saying that this happened in your case. It could have been any number of things. Often, the gate agents don't receive very good information. They may be told it is a weather cancellation, even if the real reason is something else. One possiblity is that delta decided to use your aircraft on a different flight (to replace a plane with, perhaps mechanical difficulties). This is probably done when the other flight has far more passengers and/or it is much more difficult to reacommodate those passengers than the ones on your flight (such as the other flight being the last one that day, while your route has more flights). Some of us do suspect that airlines will occaisionally cancel planes for economic reasons. I think this is likely very rare, however, economic decisions do likely factor into the decision to cancel a flight to use the aircraft on a different flight.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by stef315:
This happens all the time in Alaska. It's usually because there are not enough passengers on the flight.

I've had the 10:30 flight from Barrow to Anchorage cancelled due to "mechanical difficulties." They just rebooked me on the 7pm! That's 8 1/2 hours. I asked if it was just delayed since it was mechanical and they said "No. Cancelled." Of course this was at about 9:30. They already knew they couldn't get the plane fixed.

I usually just go with it up here but that bugged me because it was a Saturday. I had been gone for awhile and had to be at work on Monday. The flight arrived around 10pm so I basically had Sunday for my weekend (which included doing all the laundry from the trip!).

I'd say it sucks but 1 1/2 hours isn't that long. Maybe I'm just used to it. I usually plan on about an hour delay of some sort. </font>

It's quite rare that an airline would cancel a flight because of loads. In this case, the plane that's going to NY has to pick up passengers in NY to go to its next destinations. Cancelling this flight would create a domino effect.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by zrs70:
It's quite rare that an airline would cancel a flight because of loads.

</font>

Oh ho ho. Guess you've never hung around the Alaska terminal at LAX around 500p-800p on any weeknight. They schedule LAX-SEA flights to leave about every 30-45 minutes or so, but invariably at least one is cancelled and the loads combined. It's absolutely standard practice. I went through a six-month period in 2000 or '01 when I almost never came home on the flight number I was booked on.

I don't know if it's because they cancel southbound trips for the same reason and therefore don't have the metal at LAX for all their published northbound runs, or they knowingly publish more flights than they can operate and just cancel the lightest-booked one, or if it's cheaper for them to overnight a/c on Mexico services at LAX than to fly them up to SEA and back one-third full.

But if an airline person tells you soberly that trips are "never" cancelled because of light loads, don't believe it.

My flight was delayed out of KIX last summer for 8 hours because of a typhoon, but I arrived at my destination only 3 hours late. Still received 10000 miles and the standard dicount voucher, phone card, airport meal.
I guess you just have to ask.

On Continental I used to fly the red eye LAX-Newark and then book the first morning flight into Syracuse. I had that morning flight cancelled due to "weather" related reasons 4 out of 4 times in a four month period.

The first time it happened I was informed before my flight left LAX the night before. The next flight of the day was cancelled also, and all 12 of the passenegers (from the first two flights plus the third flight of the day) that had been stranded at EWR got on the plane. There was definitely no weather issue at SYR (the sun was out and no snow--I spoke to people that said it was like that all morning), and the travel weather map on TV listed no weather delays throughout the country.

The solution for the remaining three "weather" delays: after landing in EWR I would hop on a plane into Boston and then go to Syracuse. 500 extra OnePass Miles, and I would always arrive within ten minutes of my originally scheduled arrival time.


[This message has been edited by J0HN (edited 04-15-2002).]

I strongly suspect DL is playing games.

One principle you need to keep in mind is that you will never be able to recover for your inconvenience. If you are losing money by not being at your destination, get on another carrier and just go and try to get DL to pay for it later. There's no guarantee they will, but I can guarantee you they won't compensate you because your vacation was 12 hours shorter, etc. etc.

It was canceled due to weather.

I flew ORD-LGA last night on AA and our flight was delayed due to weather, though not by very long. A friend's flight last night from MDW-LGA was also delayed for the same reason.

Though the skies were clear, we were bouncing all over the place when we got near NYC, and the pilots said that ATC had to significantly reduce the number of arrivals and departures at the NYC airports.

Plenty of times I've been in this situation, where weather is cited as the problem at the arrival city, but the skies are clear. It's possible, and it happened last night.

d

Well, this story just keeps getting better. Finally back in New York this afternoon, but you guessed it...... no luggage or golf clubs. They told us after locating them they would send them on a later flight. Just curious what ever happened to the new security system where no luggage can fly without it's owner on the same flight. It will be interesting to see what part of the country it ended up in. So much for security.

Airlines aren't required to do much for you for weather related problems.

The only gripe I think you can have here is that they lost/misrouted (we'll see which one) your luggage.

If you're not happy with the way they're handling your luggage situation, take your business elsewhere.

d

It sure would be nice if the airlines had to share their weather information publicly. Further, if it is unsafe for one airline to fly, then it should be that way for them all.

Someone tell me why there should not be a centralized weather posting for all airlines and PUBLIC to reference. It would stop the lying when they really do not want to fly an unprofitable flight.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Dudster:
Remember that weather at the city of origin of the [b]aircraft[b] may cause your delay or cancellation. For instance, a month or so ago, my flight MSP-EWR was delayed 5 hours because of weather in DEN, where the aircraft originated.
</font>

IIRC, weather problems in a 3rd city (that are irrelevant to your itinerary) don't count as weather related delays for the sake of rule 240. After all, it's not your fault that the airline decided to get your MSP-EWR airplane from DEN.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by CountinPlaces:


Someone tell me why there should not be a centralized weather posting for all airlines and PUBLIC to reference. It would stop the lying when they really do not want to fly an unprofitable flight. </font>

You can see FAA weather delays here:

http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyFAA/index.html

At crowded airports, it doesn't take much weather to cause problems. Just a low cloud cieling will mean that aircraft spacing will have to be increased. This means flights will be delayed and/or cancelled. To a person on the ground, or to the tv weatherman, a low cloud cieling may not be noticed or mentioned. So just becuase your mother/wife/friend didn't see any problems with the weather, doesn't mean that the weather wasn't a problem.

just outta curiosity what would the compensation be like if it wasnt weather related?

For what was essentially a 1½ hour delay? How about an apology. A meal coupon might have been nice, I guess.

Tigertiger'
A 1 1/2 hour delay? Our flight was scheduled to leave Sunday evening at 8:10, We arrived in NY Monday afternoon at 1PM, with no luggage.

[This message has been edited by Always Travel Ready (edited 04-16-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by dominick:
just outta curiosity what would the compensation be like if it wasnt weather related?</font>

A free hotel room (for an overnight delay such as this topic).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by zrs70:
It's quite rare that an airline would cancel a flight because of loads. </font>

DL used to this quite often. They would fold an earlier flight into a later flight and so long seat assignments, etc. They would notify you by phone a few or a couple of days out, but you would often get a center seat on a packed flight. It's why I stopped flying them unless absolutely necessary.

Thats the disadvantage to flying on an airline that adds many flights to a market merely to outnumber the departures of their low fare competition to rid them of the market. When Delta can not fill the seats they needlessly placed in the market they simply cancel the flight.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tvx:
DL used to this quite often. They would fold an earlier flight into a later flight and so long seat assignments, etc. They would notify you by phone a few or a couple of days out, but you would often get a center seat on a packed flight. It's why I stopped flying them unless absolutely necessary.</font>

There was an article in the Southwest magazine awhile back that addressed this perception. Their point was that cancelling a flight due to a light load also means that subsequent flights (some of which might be very full) will be cancelled as well, so it's not that simple. However, they did point out that flights are sometimes cancelled due to a mechanical problem or crew availability issues. In those cases, it would make sense to look at the flights departing within a certain time window, and divert the remaining equipment and crew to the fuller flights, and thus cancel the one with the lightest load. Thus, they inconvenience the fewest passengers, even though this can give rise to the perception that flights with light loads are often cancelled deliberately. This logic makes all the sense in the world to me, and I suspect that a similar thought process occurs at the other carriers as well.

Setting aside underhanded cancellation of flights because of load issues for a moment...

Am I alone in gratitude for pilots & airlines that don't fly until they think the weather or plane is safe enough to do so?

I've had my share of delays, but a year later they're forgotten. I would rather not find out what will happen if they choose to fly when chances of an accident or failure are higher.

JP

Normally "bad weather" isn't massive thunderstorms over the airport that would threathen your physical safety. Usually it means high winds or winds in a bad direction or low clouds or T-storms en route, all of which primarily affect ATC, not safety.

IMHO, the FAA is too conservative when it comes to ATC flow control. It works out nicely when a plane sits on the ground instead of circling (fuel consumption), but often a plane could have gotten through anyway, or gotten through sooner than expected, and as a result everyone's time is wasted.

Only recently did the FAA allow flights to cruise at "low" altitudes (something like 20,000 feet) to avoid delays. The only disadvantage of flying low is the greater fuel burn. Safety is rarely an issue when it comes to "weather", although it makes for a good excuse that many people believe.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by CountinPlaces:
Someone tell me why there should not be a centralized weather posting for all airlines and PUBLIC to reference. It would stop the lying when they really do not want to fly an unprofitable flight. </font>


There is, it's called www.atc.gov (http://www.atc.gov) (I forget the subpath since I don't fly much anymore) It has a US Map with the top 50 Airports on it, and you can get very current data on flight delays due to weather. it is also very specific about city-pairs. Ex: LGA-PIT may be singled out as a route for which there are delays on one or both ends.

This was so very helpful to me when I was 'sentenced' to a project outside of Chicago and rarely got home on the same day due to the mess at ORD. Sometimes I would see the delays before I left the job site so I would call US Chmn's desk. I often had more advance info than they did.

If you're really good at research, it helps when you can figure out which inbound flight makes your outbound and backtrack IT for delays, etc... Did that a lot when I was in and out of PIT weekly.

Hope this helps you. (I know it won't save you from the lying b**tards at DL, but having truthful information can make you feel a little better.)




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"You can never have too much Reverb."