pauleeepaul

"If you've never missed a flight you've spent too much time in airports."



(And I have missed a few)

Ronlap

Happened to me on UA @ YYZ. Flight delayed 3 hours due to equipment. Went to AC lounge. After 30 minutes in the lounge the display board went from "Delayed" to "Boarding" at "Gate XX."

Ran to the displayed gate which was completely empty. Ran in panic to find any gate with a UA agent. Found an agent who told us that the gate changed. Ran to that gate and found out the plane just departed. Agent told us that they paged us multiple times.

To their credit, US booked us on AC direct flight to replace our missed flight which was a connection.

c1ue

Back in the day of America West (America Worst), I used to fly from Austin to Phoenix nearly weekly.
I learned after the first time or two that delayed flights don't mean you can wander off to the lounge or bar until 30 minutes before the new departure time.
AW would frequently bring in a new plane and leave hours before the announced time of departure due to delay.
Sucks but would you rather leave earlier than (delayed flight) expectation or have the airline be good to its "word"?

Danwriter

And hopefully much of that "wasted" time was properly enjoyed.

And RE the point at hand:
- Many if not most airport schedule monitors are not under the control of the airline, so the data is often dodgy to start with
- Airlines can roll out replacement A/C, especially in hubs, so IRROP times can change quickly

nutwpinut

I would rather have AA be good to its word and communicate to me that it has changed the flight delay to an earlier time.

mefoghorn7

Many of you seem to be missing the many ways that a passenger can get notifications for flight delays.

On aa.com, you can sign up for BeNotified in your AAdvantage profile.
Or you can look up your flight status and "Get alerts for this flight" by text or email.
Or if you have the mobile app, you will receive push notifications.
Or if you add your mobile boarding pass to the Apple Wallet application.

All of these will alert you to the "undelay" type of situation mentioned by the OP. Any time the new ETD changes by 15 minutes or more, either forward or backward, the alert will go out.

arollins

Along with all these alerts, you also have alerts from tripit, tripcase, awardwallet and other flight itinerary manager app that you use.

josmul123

I had this happen while I was sitting in the gate area. Back before I had status, I mis-connected, and they put me on standby for the next flight. I sat at the gate, waiting for them to call me to the podium. They closed the door, I walked up to the podium and said "I guess I didn't make it?"

Gate agent (falsely) claimed he "called my name 5 times" to which I responded "I was sitting right there staring at you the entire time you were boarding the flight." He insisted he called me. It was my word against his. I ended up on the next flight, and it wasn't too big of a deal. But boy was I frustrated when I figured out he had sent that flight out with open seats when I had been sitting there waiting.

adpucci

well I beg to differ on that. If I am given a boarding pass with a different departure time, then implicitly it means the flight is rescheduled - since it has been put black on white that the departure time has changed.

Often1

You are free to differ. But, that puts you at odds with reality at almost all stations on almost all carriers.

This is not to suggest that you must quietly fold your hands and sit waiting for 5 hours. Rather, it means asking an agent.

The same people who froth at the mouth here on FT about "rolling delays" in which a 30-minute delay is announced every 30 minutes, then froth at the mouth when a delay based on best information then available is posted and then changes because the circumstances of the delay change, a replacement aircraft or crew are located. What looks like a 2-hour repair may take 1-hour or 3 hours.

iadisgreat

Actually, the problem being discussed is that AA neither regularly sends out notifications nor updates the departure boards when a delay is rolled back, then proclaims, "Well, you should have been at the gate at the original departure time" as an excuse. Nothing to do with the fact that delays can change, it's all about notification.

Catbert10

All of these notifications only work if AA Operations pushes the changes to the systems that update the apps, website, FDS, GA monitors, etc. That vital step is where AA falls down. Obviously someone at AA knows the status of the aircraft, the location of the crews, etc, and knows it very accurately. However, AA does a very poor job of getting that information to their customers. It's no better at getting the information to their front line staff either.

And welcome to FT, BTW.

berrythekid

No, you dont. It's one of the most annoying things in travel but the airlines specifically say to stay in the gate area when a flight is delayed. Also, lounges rarely, if ever, announce that flights are boarding. This one's on you, buddy.

Adelphos

I was recently in a situation at a smaller airport when a flight was being repeatedly delayed by weather. I was spending time at the nearby airport bar while my traveling companion was at the gate. All of a sudden, they get permission to board the flight and they started to board (about 45 minutes earlier than the last "official" boarding time I saw on the AA app). I never received an alert on my phone - I did hear the announcement on the intercom, and I received a text from my companion. I didn't appreciate the fact that I wasn't given a proper alert from AA about the new boarding time.

I've also been in situations where a flight has been delayed for several hours, and I decided not even to travel to the airport until about an hour before departure (this happened on a JFK to SFO flight, though admittedly not on AA). In this case, I received e-mails and text alerts from the carrier with the new departure and boarding times.

Bottom line, if airlines send out new departure times for delayed flights, then "undelay" them, they should make every effort to let passengers know. If the airline is unsure about the departure time, they shouldn't give out concrete later boarding times - just say the flight is "delayed" and give out more information later

MSPeconomist

This is my interpretation too. Once the new time is printed on a boarding pass, the OP is entitled to board until the cutoff time lapsed on what appears on the boarding pass.

OTOH, when my flight is delayed, I'm usually pretty obsessive about watching not only the airline's flight status info (and airport or lounge monitors, etc.) for updates, but I also like to watch flightaware.com and follow progress of the inbound aircraft too if that seems to be relevant.