I have a trip coming up from NYC to South Pacific with a connection at DFW. One ticket through AA with AA and FJ as operators (undefendable, cash, non-basic). I’ve been looking at recent stats for my first (AA) flight and see that it is very unreliable: cancelations or huge delays (3+ hours) that would make me miss my connecting flight. If I miss my connection, it’ll have serious consequences in the next stages of the trip (going to outer islands in Fiji, many variables). What can I do at this point? Try to show up at the airport earlier at LGA and stand up for an earlier flight? I am AA Plat, which does not entitle me to much, but may be a somewhat better chance at standby?
Somewhat related: what is the cause of the recent LGA-DFW bad performance? LGA? Floods in TX? Or the summer storms at DFW? If it is the latter, at least I can look at forecast. If it is something else, it is more unpredictable.
The past several weeks have been pretty bad for thunderstorms on the east coast as well as DFW, we've seen lots of delays and cancellations especially on the afternoon and evening flights. Most of the issues are related to this.
At this point you really have 2 options:
1) Call AA and ask about changing to an earlier LGA-DFW flight, paying any fare difference
2) Go standby on an earlier LGA-DFW flight; Your PLT status gets you priority on the standby waitlist above Golds and any pax w/o status or employees. Check the loads on the earlier flights first to see which ones would have better chances of clearing.