greenery

Due to the Blizzard in Denver, thousands of people are trying to call the various Airlines to re-book their flights. Most of them are getting a busy signal or wait on hold for hours. Others are forced to drive to the Airport and wait in long lines to reschedule their reservations. WHY?

Why can't the Airlines automate the system so people who are scheduled to fly into or through Denver, can just log into the Internet and be offered a variety of options and rebook, using the same Airline as they are currently booked on?

The person would log on to the Airline's site, type in their current flight reservation or frequent flyer number, and the Airlines web site would give out flight options on other days for rebooking. The passenger would then select the best option and would be e-ticketed.

Why not?

DavidO

I had clients whose flights to DEN were cancelled last night, and I had to go to work for them. It was extremely frustrating, but I had success in the end. Here's the whole story.

jpdx

Now this is a great question! By the OP.

J-M

Not only that, I think it's a serious question by the OP ^

GUWonder

The airlines need to get their act in order and enable something like this. With United having the CO call center basically whacked out for a while, the standard "use the phones" or go to a kiosk (and use the phones there) just doesn't work fast or well for most all either; and staffing at the larger airports is insufficient to handle even seasonally expected irregularities of this nature.

While I'd hope there would be something like this in the near future, I doubt any US airline will have something like this by this time next year .... mostly because any override authority given directly to travellers themselves will mean some game the system or possibly even mess up things more. Then there's the whole issue of amending instructions for checked baggage too.

tjl

Seems like the biggest problem is the lack of reserve capacity in phone agent staffing.

It probably would not be technically difficult for the airline to be able to mark specific itineraries as being affected by the cancelled flights, so that the web site could allow a one time free rebooking to the same destination with no penalty or fare change. But that would still not cover every situation (e.g. airline's own flights are sold out, so it needs to send passengers to other airlines). That would still run into the lack of reserve capacity in phone agent staffing.

the_traveler

If the storm is on (say) Wednesday and they expect the airport to be closed until at least (say) Friday afternoon, but you have a flight scheduled for Thursday or Friday morning, what checked baggage? You wouldn't be at the airport for 2 days! (You may not have even packed yet!)

True, if you are enroute already, but if you don't begin your travel for another day or 2, it would be so much easier and make sense (LOL) to allow web-based rescheduling. (When do airlines ever do something that makes sense? )