jdrtravel

Hi all: I'm a DL flyer, though back when AS & DL were married I flew AS a few times, but on DL tickets so really did not deal with AS directly so much.

Yesterday, my flight from SNA-SFO was "cancelled" (or so I thought). OK, not great, but stuff happens.

However:

1) I received no notification of this, I just happened to check before leaving for the airport (and yes, they have my contact info).
2) AS provides absolutely no way (that I could find) to manage anything online or in app in this situation, and then it was a 45 minute hold to call.
3) Two hours after cancellation (and me calling to get a refund after confirming with the agent that it was cancelled), I received an email telling me that my flight would now take place but would fly into SJC instead, with a shuttle provide. However, when checking the flight app, it still stated, in big red letters, CANCELLED.
4) At this point I had already rented a car and was well on my may on the 7 hour drive, but who even knows if that flight flew or not.
5) I just checked the flight status, and it is showing that the flight did in fact take off and flew into SJC, and was only 90 minutes delayed. Its rather infuriating that I spent the day driving after being told by the agent that this and the next flight were cancelled.

Is this normal operating procedure? I don't blame AS for having issues when there is bad weather, that's fully understandable. But what's up with the conflicting information and lack of communication? And how does a fight get cancelled and then fly? And why are there not online tools for managing this?
Should I contact someone about this?

ucdtim17

They don't seem to have the best IT protocol for these planned diversions. If they notify you, it seems often to be that your flight is "cancelled" and to call in to get rebooked, even though they are planning to operate out of SJC or OAK. Some of this may be changing operational plans in a fluid situation, but it happens frequently enough with SFO, they should know how to handle it by now and have the IT protocols in place to notify people smoothly that their flight is going to be operating into/out of SJC/OAK.

gobeavs8

I find it annoying on the PDX-SEA shuttle when they cancel an OO flight and replace it with a QX flight like an hour before. Your app will say your flight has been cancelled, and the new flight wont appear until almost right before boarding with no other communication. Happened a few times. Kind of scary the first time it happened and surely really annoying for irregular AS flyers.

jdrtravel

This is insane. I would be much less frustrated if the agent that I finally got in touch with had provided me with the information that the flight was actually going to happen but just into a different regional airport. However, the agent also said the flight was cancelled, and so I spent all day on I-5, when apparently I could have kept my seat. However, the agent just said the flight was cancelled and very willingly refunded my ticket (or at least claims to have, now I'm worried about that, as I received no confirmation).

It appears that the only way I would have gotten correct information would be if I had gone to the airport. But why would I go to the airport when my flight was cancelled and the agent told me that that the other flights were also cancelled? I checked other airlines and saw major rolling delays, so I figured driving was my best bet.

jdrtravel

Not acceptable. Send me a text or an email telling me that I should go to the airport to check in but that there may be delays and/or a diversion.

milypan

I had a cancelled flight this morning from LAX to SFO. They automatically rebooked me to 9:30 pm even though many earlier flights still had seats available for sale. I got the message right before I was boarding a QF flight in SYD, so there was nothing I could do about it (sat on hold for 12 mins on the 75K line and then had to get on QF before boarding closed). When QF touched down at LAX of course every earlier flight was now fully booked (except in F, which they didn’t offer me). I asked to take a morning flight to SJC instead, and the agent happily booked me onto it. It wasn’t a great experience, but it could have been worse. Certainly it didn’t seem like they were going to any effort to get me home in a reasonable amount of time without me being proactive in suggesting solutions to them. Overall I’d say it was somewhat worse than my experiences with IRROP handling on UA, but not dramatically worse.

sltlyamusd

Had a similar experience yesterday. Was connecting in PDX, and for some reason, my scheduled PDX-SEA flight ended up delayed 4 hours, while all the other flights around it remained on-time. Surprisingly, it was the mainline AS flight that was screwed up in this case and not the QX flights. I had a 2 hour scheduled layover in PDX, and they knew about the delay before I left my point of origin. However, they still tried to rebook me on a later flight, even though I had time to connect to an earlier flight in PDX and would almost certainly have gotten on if they had simply made the change as soon as they found out about the delay on my original flight, or just added me to the standby list far enough in advance. I decided to drive instead...turned out to be faster. Water under the bridge at this point, but it does seem like their IT doesn't always pursue the best options for rebooking during IRR ops.

tusphotog

sltlyamusd

formeraa

Of course, the OP is comparing AS to DL, which has the best IRROPS automation. Even UA and AA are NOWHERE close to DL's customer-friendly IRROPS automation and frankly never have been.

jdrtravel

True. It is rare that I don't fly DL, but I wanted nonstop service SFO-SNA. It is really surprising to me how significant the differences are between the two companies. This will, without a doubt, cause me to avoid AS more in the future.

ucdtim17

The QX SNA-SFO service seems to take the brunt of SFO delays/diversions/cancellations while SEA/PDX mainline service operates more regularly.

jdrtravel

I expect a higher rate of IRROPS on RJ service into SFO. That's true across all airlines and my issue with AS is not that there were IRROPS. My issue is in their handling of the situation--specifically the terrible communication and also the utter lack of ability to do anything online or in app in 2018.

sfozrhfco

This is an understatement. Never take a regional jet flight out of SFO on a day where there is fog or rain if you want to actually get to your destination. UA and other carriers have the same issue.

3Cforme

A little OT, but people who complain about Delta IT, the apps, and IRROPS ought to fly other carriers more. They'll see things can be a lot worse - as the OT's example (just one observation).