AAaLot

At what point is it an airline operational choice versus a weather delay?

I was scheduled to fly DFW-ORD-TVC

I had a 'weather cancellation' of my DFW-ORD flight, yet the flight before and after did go.

There were no more seats DFW-ORD...so AA put me on a DFW-DTW and I would drive the rest of the way.

At the airport some seats DFW-ORD had opened up, but now my ORD-TVC flight was full (not weather delay) [I should have forced them to keep a seat open for me...new learning for next time].

I know that many flyers have been trained to not think of this question and automatically say 'obviously weather delay,'...but is it really? It was same routes, similar times, etc. At some point AA made a computer choice.

Is this really a weather delay or just a choice by AA....minimally shouldn't they pay for a car voucher DTW-TVC?

brp

You really do seem to have a lot of issues and problems.

As to this one, I'm sure that they use "weather" for the convenience. Obviously, though, "other flights leaving" are pretty much irrelevant. Weather issues can cause a reduction in capacity, so some flight have to be cut, not all. Could well be what happened here.

So, could it be convenient excuses? Yes. Could it be weather? Yes. Do we have any real way of knowing? No. Is this more than just a speculation thread with little substance? No.

Do they owe you for the car? No.

Cheers.

videomaker

Just what I was thinking.

Since OP (in another thread) says he is starting an air-taxi service, maybe using his own plane is the solution.

AAaLot

I did resolve that problem on that day with my plane...just makes me wonder about everyone else

I was scheduled to fly DFW-ORD-TVC...I ended up flying DFW-DTW and having my pilot picking me up. From a pilots perspective the weather was not really that bad.

On that day there seemed to be about 12 DFW-ORD flights per day. 2 of them were canceled due to weather....we all know any of the 2 flights could have been canceled...so why where the passengers in these 2 'specific' flights punished? If it really was weather shouldn't all the punishment be distributed?

Point is that there are times when weather leaves an airline no choice, and times when the airline has choice to match their operations. The concept of choice...or matching to operations clouds the issue of weather.

Another example. If a flight is traveling SFO-ORD-NYC and there is bad weather in SFO, is the flight ORD-NYC 'really' a weather delay or is an operational delay due to the airline not having aircraft at the right place.

I am not sure what my conclusion is other that there seems to be a 3 types of delay: weather, operational, and a cousin to weather.

I look forward to thought out comments on this.