morrisunc

I was a long time US plat/AA ck pre merger and always felt pMUS was less conservative on canceling flights during bad winter weather events - today was my first experience with the merged carrier and bad weather and it seems the merged carrier has stuck to the PMAA super conservative philosophy of pre-canceling flights. I was booked on aa non stop lax-rdu which was canceled 24 hours ahead of time - I rebooked on Delta nonstop which left on-time and landed at a completely clear RDU on time and left back to LAX on time. Most of the flights from rdu were canceled - I think all AA flights were - but all Delta flights to non affected areas seemed to leave from RDU. AA needs to get this right. I will sit in a middle seat in the back row of coach on an airline that can operationally get me to and from where I need to be when they say they will - no matter how crappy their fq program may be. There was no reason to clx AA 758 today. Thank goodness delta came through.

JonNYC

Because you have decreed that to be the case?

FlytheTail

Indeed, Delta seems to fly in bad weather more than UA and AA in my (for AA, limited) experiences. I remember landing in a snowstorm last year on DL when UA had cancelled.

discoverCSG

Indeed:

cedric

...and http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...122-story.html

morrisunc

Both the AA and Delta nonstop flight fly LAX-RDU-LAX within an hour of each other - so unless you believe Delta would intentionally put their customers at risk - which don't think anyone would believe they would do - then yes I believe the AA flight could have 100% safely flown without incident just as the delta flight I arrived on - on time - 30 minutes after my scheduled arrival on AA. AA canceled on me a day before the departure - rdu was completely clear and operational. The roads were a mess, but the airport remained open.

cedric

I bet we could find an example of a flight that AA operated today that DL didn't. I mean, I don't have the time or energy to do it, but it sounds like you might.

Flights are not operated in isolation. Aircraft, crews, connections, potential for stranding passengers, aircraft & crews in place to resume operations after the weather with minimum disruption all are taken into account in addition to the weather forecasts. A number of other passengers booked on the same flight as yours probably appreciated being able to change their plans with a waiver/known cancellation ahead of having to deal with a flight that potentially would have flown/potentially not. You can't please everyone. Let's see who gets their operation going more reliably after the storm is over.

JonNYC

Beautifully explained.

You'd -think- much of this is just common sense/common knowledge among FTers by now, but, obviously not. That's life.

cedric

Don't get me wrong. Getting inconvenienced isn't fun. But if AA consistently makes decisions that effect, say, 150 passengers now instead of 300 down the line, the law of averages will eventually work in your favour. And they may very well have taken into consideration that an alternative was available when making that decision.

morrisunc

Since I "clearly" have the time - I will continue this debate. How would 300 people have been affected by canceling a flight that - every day - flies the same metal on the same route. This is so simple - AA canceled - For what I could tell - every flight out of RDU today before an accurate forecast - delta did not - and ran the majority of their flights south of Rdu today. I thought it was already statistically proven that delta operates more of their flights on time and without cancelation than AA.

morrisunc

Delta did

rjw242

It's simple from your perspective, sure. Your flight got cancelled, and you're angry. Everyone believes that their flight is the most important flight in the history of the universe, and that an airline is personally and deliberately slighting them, with malice, when the flight is cancelled. It's a bit like when people here express anger that AA doesn't operate frequent nonstop flights from their hometown to every one of their favorite destinations, and conveniently have a litany of reasons why those are the most important and profitable routes AA could possibly serve. Those impressions are somewhat understandable, if preposterous.

The big picture is anything but simple, however.

cedric

There are a lot of variables, many of which we are not privy to. Perhaps that flight is operated by a PHL-based aircraft and crew. Deploying it could mean that the aircraft and crew later gets stuck out of position when it can't make it back to PHL. So now, that flight that it would have operated when the storm is over gets cancelled. And you can bet that that flight will be full of stranded passengers, whereas yours may only have been booked half full.

Yes, that's hypothetical, but it's just one of several possible consequences.

OP, I'm glad you made it to your destination. However, I'm not sure why you are attacking those that are attempting to answer your question. Nowhere did I say you "clearly" had time to do some research. I was implying that you certainly could do so and would likely find examples contrary to your argument, to help you understand the bigger picture.

EDIT: AA operated their 5:40pm ATL-PHL flight, and DL cancelled their 6:25pm ATL-PHL flight. Good thing you weren't on DL's flight. You would have been pretty annoyed, I bet.

morrisunc

Angry I am not - I'm lucky to have a huge range of options open to me if something like this happens. CK desk told me they were proactively canceling flights out of RDU. Delta was not - they ran most of their non-ne flights out of rdu on time - the crew is phx based - as always - they do - phx-lax-rdu then rdu-lax-phx. Every time.

satman40

I have seen Delta cancel flights before.

They all do.

I use to fly Delta,