Originally Posted by
swanscn
Yes, you are correct for some business travellers. What I would have done is call my client informed him of the problem and re-scheduled for a time that is not going to cost them or me a huge premium.
Great if your business can handle it. Not all work can affordably handle a three day - or week - delay in getting done.
Originally Posted by
Athena53
I think that the recent snowstorms were a good example of how the new processes work. Yes, they did cancel flights all over the place and for some people the next available flight (3 days out?) didn't work. My son was flying between DSM and LGA over Christmas and being delayed in one direction would have shortened his time with family; in the other it would have required him to be out of work when he'd run out of vacation days. (His job is not one that can de done anywhere from a laptop.) Luckily, he got in and out on schedule.
And I got out on my last snow-cancellation day only 5.5 hours late, but I was very lucky. Had I not gotten out on Friday morning the next option the airline had for me was Sunday afternoon for a Monday morning return flight. In other words, no good. I would have been out my previously sunk costs and the airline has no obligations. Even worse, not all travel insurance products would even offer coverage for such a scenario, so there is a lot of potential exposure for customers.
Originally Posted by
Athena53
Still, once you're shut up in a flight that's backed away from the gate with no food or water and lavs that filled up hours ago, you have zero options unless you want to start behavior that makes the crew get out the plastic handcuffs. Outright cancellation is preferable.
The number of instances where there are truly no lavs nor water available for so long that it becomes a health issue are so few that it is ridiculous to make rules around them, IMO. That isn't a 3 hour situation at all.
Originally Posted by
Athena53
A couple of ways to improve things: add more flights after the airport is up and running again to move the backlog of pax, and require that any fines paid for tarmac delays go to the affected pax!
It isn't possible to add more flights at airports that are already operating at max capacity. Airlines don't have airplanes and flight crews sitting idle waiting to run a bunch of extra sections. That just isn't practical.
Originally Posted by
Kiwi Flyer
The new rules do not come into effect until next month. I'd expect some airlines are currently experimenting with their processes to determine how best to respond once the rules are being enforced. Thus, recent actions are not necessarily indicative of how it will work in practice.
Not necessarily, but I think highly likely. CO CEO Jeff Smisek stated that the mass cancellation approach allows the airline to resume normal operations as quickly as possible. I think he's probably right. Having the crew and planes staged and ready to go means that follow-on delays due to diverted planes are minimized. Plus the airlines don't have to bear the costs of handling the customers at a diversion point if they're still at the origin or destination point.
This is the way of the future and we're all stuck with it now. I'm not a fan though I can understand others might disagree.