HELP! MBJ-CLT delay, probably miss flt to SEA
 

Concerned grandma here...my son, his wife and lap infant, along with an aunt with recent knee replacement are headed today to SEA from MBJ thru CLT. They already had a 94 min connection time, have checked bags and no global entry.

At this time (hasn't departed yet) AA 869 shows delay of 37 mins, makes their close connection even more unlikely. There are a couple of later AA flights thru DFW or PHX that could get them back to SEA around 2 am, but it looks pretty miserable, especially travelling with an infant.

What are their best courses of action: talk to FA and hope AA will hold their connecting CLT/SEA flight, head for the AA counter if/after they miss their CLT/SEA flight, call AA directly? These are purchased flights (thru Expedia), don't have status. Appreciate any helpful advice.

Since I assume they'll need to go through customs upon arrival in CLT, the chances are good that they'll miss their connecting flight to SEA in which case they will probably be given a hotel and rebooked on a flight the next day...not a bad option in my opinion since you get a free hotel room and it breaks up the long trip a bit. If they haven't boarded in MBJ yet, they may want to call or ask an AA agent about the options via DFW and/or PHX....yes, it makes for a really late night with a 2am arrival, but as someone who flew MANY flights with daughter when she was an infant, it's really not as tough on the infant or parents as it may seem--way easier than traveling with a 2 or 3 year old.

I presume they are on 869, connecting to 609. The incoming flight to 869 is delayed, due to arrive 12:14pm, If it departs at 1:02pm, the current delayed schedule, they still have to clear immigration, most likely miss their connections.

Most likely there are other flyers that are affected as well, AA will do their best to accommodate, I presume that since you mentioned non-status flyer, they are probably in the back of plane, they should do their best to get out of the plane quickly, mention that they have a tight connection and hopefully others will allow them to pass through.

If 869 starts getting delayed, there are other options, but they need to talk to a gate agent, options are 1501/134 via Miami, if they miss 609 in CLT, they could get into 463/589 clt-phx-sea. Good luck.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"they still have plenty of time to make their connection, since 869 arrives at gate D5, and 609 departs D3, they just need to go to the next gate and with a 1 hr layover on CLT, should be good."

Aren't the CLT gate locations irrelevant, since the passengers have to clear Immigration and Customs at CLT? Won't they be dumped land-side after Customs?

There's also a 6:55 CLT-DFW-SEA flight that they may be able to make.

I amended my post when I realized they are INT-DOS connection and need to clear immigration.

OP should not expect the connecting flight to be held. That is rare. It is more rare when it isn't the last routing of the day (although AA CLT-SEA isn't frequent).

Travelers should get in line for rebooking at CLT, and call AA if the line is moving slowly in hopes of rebooking by phone faster.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"Travelers should get in line for rebooking at CLT, and call AA if the line is moving slowly in hopes of rebooking by phone faster."

Assuming that one of the passengers is traveling with a cell phone, a call can be placed to AA Off-Schedule Operations at 800-446-7834 as soon as the MBJ-CLT flight lands -- while the plane is taxiing to the terminal. This should give the travelers a leg up over others who will miss their connections, and they will thus avoid having to stand in what could be a long line at CLT. ;)

Thanks for the quick help; I will message it to them. Knew someone would have the number to call AA in this situation. Is it likely they won't make it through immigration and customs, so they should try to make other arrangements as soon as they land in CLT?
Is it a given that they will be given a free hotel room by AA if they can't be rebooked tonight?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"Is it a given that they will be given a free hotel room by AA if they can't be rebooked tonight?"

If the delay is weather-related, probably not; otherwise, probably so.

But how did they pay for these flights? Did they use a credit card that includes free trip-delay insurance?

This is good news. Delay doesn't look weather-related.

Re the credit card, unfortunately don't think so. They haven't bought into our credit card "philosophy", just have Alaska Air Visa Signature. Has some emergency assistance benefits, but no trip-delay insurance.

Per aa.com, the inbound aircraft operated AA 840, which per the flight status on ExpertFlyer was affected by an air traffic control delay:

Quote:

---

CLT B B5 802A 925A B11
MBJ 13 1125A
3CLT/ETD0955 ADE-AIR TRAFFIC DELAY BETWEEN BRDPNT AND DEST *0756
7CLT/AUTO REACCOM DLY FLT COMPLETED SEE N*P1AA0840CLT26MAR *0800*CRCYMG
4CLT/OUT0949 OFF1033 *0933
2MBJ/IN1213 *1219

---

At CLT, even with immigration and customs, that's about as short a walk as they could have. They will come out of customs and proceed to the D/E security checkpoint, and D3 is one of the shorter walks possible from there.

They were able to rebook from MBJ and fly out earlier through DFW, so it went pretty smoothly. Thanks again for the helpful comments.

Just a reminder that the OSO number is only active when there are major delays system wide and I don't think it forwards to anything otherwise.

So i'm in Maiquetia (CCS-Venezuela) for one of the last CCS-JFK flights. Original departure was schedule at 12:30pm, as of now projected departure is at 3:48pm. My parents are traveling with me and they are already tired. We are going to Narita.

:td:

5th delay/ schedule change. In plane doors closed, being held. Supposely it departs at 4:20pm, aka 10 mins.

I've seen the phone number posted at AA rebooking centers as an alternative to waiting for an agent, so I believe the phone number always works even if the specific IROPS desk isn't activated. My guess is that it forwards to a prioritized queue for reservations like the Gold and Platinum "desks".

Ops Nightmate at 4/7 at DCA Tonight
 

Just landed from CLT and we've been on the tarmac for an hour waiting for a gate. Twitter feed has a whole bunch of speculation- AA says weather, lots of PAX saying computer malfunction. Anyone else have any ideas or concrete ideas? :o

*Nightmare

As long as you arrived safe, is the main thing.

Glad you had a safe trip.

All hell broke loose with thunderstorms. Just be grateful you were not in the District in a car trying to head into Virginia across the 14th street bridge after work. It took me an hour to move 5 miles.

Yes I was caught at the beginning of this. Added 45 minutes on tarmac before departing for DFW. I tend to agree weather, particularly thunder, stop crews going out - in the USA at least. Glad I got there, and all credit to AA for being friendly on the way. Not so much Kudos for seat pitch though.

5mph on the 14th street bridge! Sounds about normal!

If there were thunderstorms, there was probably lightning. If there are lightning strikes within X miles (I think 5) of the airport, the ground crew cannot be on the ramp. If the ground crew can't be on the ramp you can't park incoming aircraft at the gate (or marshal departing aircraft off the gate).

Frustrating, yes. Nightmare, no. Really not even all that unusual in the course of regular air travel.

Yes, very difficult weather here in DC yesterday with multiple lines of thunderstorms rolling through accompanying the cold front. One set at 5 PM, then sunshine, then another. Not too much that could be done about it. DCA is a well-oiled machine but when any disruption is thrown in it messes up the whole works given the frequency of arrivals/departures. There just isn't the slack in the system to support even a short disruption.

More than one AA ramper has died from a lightning strike. It's a very real hazard and AA acts proactively to safeguard employee lives. A very good thing, IMO - as one who has spent significant time on them I can say flightlines can be dangerous enough places without the hazard posed by lightning.

Surprised zero posts about weather in DFW this weekend. Missed a connection to SAN last night, had to stay over. I was proactive when I saw the delays and asked EXP line to hold me a seat on the flight leaving this morning. They did and it worked out. But not sure I would have been on first morning flight without be proactive.

I'm on a paid F ticket, but was stuck in coach since flight was oversold. At AC this morning the agent noticed my status was incorrect. Even though I was #1 on UPG list, I shouldn't have been on list since I was thru passenger under IRROPS. She fixed it. I disappeared from UPG list and got an F seat just before boarding.

Looks like I'll make my meeting, if so, all is well that ends well.

I do have a question though: had I been stuck in coach, would AA had owed me the fare difference??

There are posts in the long hold times thread.

Yes, or if it was an instant upgrade fare, you would've been owed at least a set amount of dollars. Last time it happened to me, I had my refund within a few days.

AA has a travel advisory for DFW today. How risky is a one hour turn?

Apparently AA issued a DFW weather waiver yesterday for severe weather due to arrive today, but I didn't get an email about it until 30 minutes before my scheduled departure (which as luck would have it, coincided with the worst of the storm perfectly). The ramp is now closed and won't open until the storm passes, which will likely cause me to miss the last bus home.

I've been traveling for almost 24 hours now from the Middle East and watched the earlier flight to my final destination leave without issue... if only I would have known :(

I had an MR planned tomorrow from dfw but receive the same email as well. Should I postpone it, has anyone been successful to change to a different day a part from the ones you are allowed to? Other option would be refund but since I used citi TY points I'm not sure how that would work. Thanks for the help!

Weather Travel Advisory Saved Our Bacon!
 

Was scheduled to fly ORD-DFW on 4/29 connecting to EY for DFW-AUH-MLE on an F Award. Saw the advisory pop up on Thursday evening and started thinking about alternatives. Couldn't sleep at all (pre-trip excitement) and at 4:15am woke up and saw the email from AA saying that there was bad weather coming that could impact our plans. I immediately checked the EY site and saw Guest First availability for JFK-AUH that would keep our connection to MLE intact. Called EXP Desk and they were able to reroute us ORD-BOS-JFK to connect to the EY JFK-AUH flight. The domestic portion was in "T" and the AAgent said that she had to force that availability for us. All got reticketed in a matter of minutes.

I kept tabs on the original flight (AA 2331) throughout the day. At first I thought we made a mistake, the weather didn't look too bad in DFW. By the time we got to Boston, we saw the creeping delay begin. By the time we landed in AUH, we saw that #2331 was 5 hours delayed. The EY flight was delayed over 3 hours as well and I would have been a basket case had we stayed on the original flight.

AA SFO-LAX-DFW-IND yesterday was so much fun
 

AA169 SFO-LAX, plane landed pretty hard and while taxing pilot stepped pretty hard on the brakes at some point, jolting everyone.
AA385 LAX-DFW, same plane as above, everyone board in time, then pilot announces they have too much fuel on board and need to unload some. Delay of 45 minutes.

Arrive in DFW about the time my next flight boards, so huffing and puffing from A25 to C20, get to gate 6 minutes closing time. Everyone already board, tell GA I need to go to the bath room, but GA replies with I will not be on the flight than, as she was going to close it now.

I swear if there weren't two other people at the gate, she would have done it, even when I pointed out it is still 6 minutes till closing. and then:

AA1382 one hour delay because of electric issues.

Learned today that IND closed shortly after arrival of AA1382 due to tornado watch.

DCA, and I'm guessing other area airports are a disaster this evening due to a large thunderstorm system. I was on 3879 to CHS, which did push out, but after an hour and a half of waiting on that Tarmac we cancelled due to crew limits. Many, many flights painting the status screens red. A huge mess. I won't be getting out till tomorrow mid-day. Good luck to anyone caught in this.

Please note: with the burgeoning TSA security queue difficulties, we have a thread dedicated to some of the more challenging locations (baggage inspection problems, security queue problems with up to 2:00 for security processing and, where they exist, possible alternatives).

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...c-2016-q2.html

Not sure if this is the right place...I noticed on the AA website that there is a travel advisory for the France ATC strike. I am flying DFW-CDG departing late tomorrow (award ticket in J). Googling shows that the strike is supposed to end at 4 AM Friday and I am supposed to land around 9:30 AM.

ANyone have experience with this kind of IRROPS? Just wait and see?

I didn't see this one. But if the strike ended on time, no problem. How did it go?

Travel waiver issued for DFW this weekend. Trying to change my flight, but don't see the option online even though I meet the criteria, looks like I'll be calling into AA to request a change.

EDIT: AA Ex Plat rep said I have to keep the same routing...how does that even make sense? I'm trying to avoid the possible bad weather by going through a different airport...

EDIT2: HUCA worked. DEN-DFW-GRR to DEN-ORD-GRR; question, does my original upgrade timestamp DEN-DFW now carry over to DEN-ORD (no first ord-grr)?

https://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInform...avelAlerts.jsp

The strike in France is hitting transit hubs, oil refineries, nuclear power stations, etc. as of 26 May 2016. As such, AA has had a travel alert in effect.