Weather related cancellation experience 2/1 SNA-DFW
Feb 3, 2007, 11:21 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Dallas, Texas, USA
Posts: 179
Weather related cancellation experience 2/1 SNA-DFW
I'd like to share an experience with the members here and see if anyone knows the inner workings that might explain how these things are decided.
I arrived at the airport for my usual 5:30 (typically late) SNA-DFW 1508 only to see that the delay was approximately 2 hours and the prior flight 1508 was also delayed and was scheduled for takeoff at 5:45, just 15 minutes subsequent to my initial flight time. So of course I got on the standby list and was happily cleared for the flight.
As the aircraft was landing that would take us back to Dallas, I overheard that a bunch of additional seats had been released and the agents went to the trouble of rebooking those with status for aisle and window seats before even calling more names. So I got another seat and everyone was awaiting imminent boarding.
The captain was at the gate and all the crew were there, aircraft was ready for imminent boarding. As I'm on the phone with my wife, she tells me that the website shows my 'new' flight had been cancelled. I heard people in the gate area very frustrated but the agents there had no news other than that they could see the same thing on their screen. A few minutes later they got a phone call and were told that Dallas (or air traffic control?) had cancelled the flight due to weather conditions.
While I understand the was inclement weather at DFW, as best as I can tell the situation was bogus- by the time we would have arrived at DFW at 10:30ish it would have been relatively quiet.
So of course there were not nearly enough seats on the later flight to accomodate nearly two fully booked flights of passengers and connecting passengers. Apparently standard procedure was followed - all luggage for connecting passengers was dumped at baggage claim and all baggage for passengers gong to DFW (regardless of whether they could secure seats) would be sent to DFW. So if you had a flight originally cancelled and could not secure a seat - tough luck your bags are taking the trip.
I could tell the agents were working very hard and were empathetic but there were only two agents at the counter. So I got my original boarding card again for the later flight, prepared to fly out 2 hours later, when something happened that I did not expect. Remember that aircraft that was sitting there with crew planning to fly 1508 at 5:45 that was cancelled? Well apparently someone finally realized it would be nice to avoid having to get us in perhaps 3 hours late so they actually pushed back the delay on 359 and we made a 6:40pm departure. I literally had approx 10-12 flight pages on that flight - it got mucked with that many times.
Questions:
1) Who sets policy and decides what flights get cancelled due to inclement weather?
2) By the time even a 5:30pm flight would have made it to DFW I doubt there would have been much congestion at all - when the subsequent flight arrived an hour later it was dead quiet at the airport, so why could they not fly both flights?
3) It seems to me it would be incredibly expensive for AA to have to cut a full flight and then probably have to reposition aircraft. Why the heck could they not have just asked for delay hold until air traffic would allow them to fly later...?
4) How common does it occur that aircraft between same city pairs for a canceled flight are rescheduled to reduce the delay on the following flight (I wish it happened more often but it was the first time for me).
5) Why would Dallas force cancellation of a flight at 5:45 but allow one to depart at 6:40 (authorizing it just 15 minutes after cancellation) - seems contradictory to me.
6) It appeared that the airport staff were pretty much reacting to decisions made far away and didn't have information any faster or better than anyone that knew what data to search. I was surprised to see both departure and arrival time for late flight to be adjusted by 10 minutes each, gates were changed multiple times, sometimes once a minute, it just seemed like a shell game.
I'm not complaining about delays, simply desiring to understand airport or air traffic protocols so that the next time something like this occurs I feel more educated about the process. (In fact, if I didn't have flight paging I would have literally missed the last flight of the evening as I would havet me that
I arrived at the airport for my usual 5:30 (typically late) SNA-DFW 1508 only to see that the delay was approximately 2 hours and the prior flight 1508 was also delayed and was scheduled for takeoff at 5:45, just 15 minutes subsequent to my initial flight time. So of course I got on the standby list and was happily cleared for the flight.
As the aircraft was landing that would take us back to Dallas, I overheard that a bunch of additional seats had been released and the agents went to the trouble of rebooking those with status for aisle and window seats before even calling more names. So I got another seat and everyone was awaiting imminent boarding.
The captain was at the gate and all the crew were there, aircraft was ready for imminent boarding. As I'm on the phone with my wife, she tells me that the website shows my 'new' flight had been cancelled. I heard people in the gate area very frustrated but the agents there had no news other than that they could see the same thing on their screen. A few minutes later they got a phone call and were told that Dallas (or air traffic control?) had cancelled the flight due to weather conditions.
While I understand the was inclement weather at DFW, as best as I can tell the situation was bogus- by the time we would have arrived at DFW at 10:30ish it would have been relatively quiet.
So of course there were not nearly enough seats on the later flight to accomodate nearly two fully booked flights of passengers and connecting passengers. Apparently standard procedure was followed - all luggage for connecting passengers was dumped at baggage claim and all baggage for passengers gong to DFW (regardless of whether they could secure seats) would be sent to DFW. So if you had a flight originally cancelled and could not secure a seat - tough luck your bags are taking the trip.
I could tell the agents were working very hard and were empathetic but there were only two agents at the counter. So I got my original boarding card again for the later flight, prepared to fly out 2 hours later, when something happened that I did not expect. Remember that aircraft that was sitting there with crew planning to fly 1508 at 5:45 that was cancelled? Well apparently someone finally realized it would be nice to avoid having to get us in perhaps 3 hours late so they actually pushed back the delay on 359 and we made a 6:40pm departure. I literally had approx 10-12 flight pages on that flight - it got mucked with that many times.
Questions:
1) Who sets policy and decides what flights get cancelled due to inclement weather?
2) By the time even a 5:30pm flight would have made it to DFW I doubt there would have been much congestion at all - when the subsequent flight arrived an hour later it was dead quiet at the airport, so why could they not fly both flights?
3) It seems to me it would be incredibly expensive for AA to have to cut a full flight and then probably have to reposition aircraft. Why the heck could they not have just asked for delay hold until air traffic would allow them to fly later...?
4) How common does it occur that aircraft between same city pairs for a canceled flight are rescheduled to reduce the delay on the following flight (I wish it happened more often but it was the first time for me).
5) Why would Dallas force cancellation of a flight at 5:45 but allow one to depart at 6:40 (authorizing it just 15 minutes after cancellation) - seems contradictory to me.
6) It appeared that the airport staff were pretty much reacting to decisions made far away and didn't have information any faster or better than anyone that knew what data to search. I was surprised to see both departure and arrival time for late flight to be adjusted by 10 minutes each, gates were changed multiple times, sometimes once a minute, it just seemed like a shell game.
I'm not complaining about delays, simply desiring to understand airport or air traffic protocols so that the next time something like this occurs I feel more educated about the process. (In fact, if I didn't have flight paging I would have literally missed the last flight of the evening as I would havet me that
Feb 3, 2007, 11:54 pm
#2
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Feb 4, 2007, 8:03 am
#3
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Texas
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Posts: 2,680
The Weather Sucked in DFW That Day
Pretty much through to evening. Lots of cancellations reported on the news. I got stuck in Houston when the last flight weather cancelled and was just thrilled to have checked flight status out before cancelling my backup hotel night. It was not that the weather was so bad you could not fly; they just have to cut the frequency by about 2/3 and increase the trail length since pilots can't see each other.
The flight disruptions cascaded into the next day. My rebooked flight got cancelled overnight. Fortunately I checked for myself at 6:30 and managed to make the 7:30 or I would have been there standing by all day. There was a mammoth trade show closing Friday sucking up all the seats. An acquantance who didn't get around and ended up on the last plane.
The flight disruptions cascaded into the next day. My rebooked flight got cancelled overnight. Fortunately I checked for myself at 6:30 and managed to make the 7:30 or I would have been there standing by all day. There was a mammoth trade show closing Friday sucking up all the seats. An acquantance who didn't get around and ended up on the last plane.