TravelLawyer

The line agents at Delta cared. I doubt they were tasked to find ways to bring Delta good PR and had it handed to them on a silver platter by sheer luck.

AndyAA

AA's upper management's thoughts on this would be more along the lines of .... The joke is on Delta. They just ruined their D0 metrics for the day!

wetrat0

I'm surprised nobody is asking the most important question. Why was a group of students from OKC flying to RIC for a school trip to Washington DC????

I guess maybe if you live in Oklahoma you might look at a map and think that RIC is close but apparently nobody told them about I-95......

Also they must have been connecting to get to RIC, which adds a layer of risk. Does OKC not have any non-stop flights to IAD or BWI?

GunsOfNavarone

Maybe I can answer that. I fly to the capital region on a regular basis and often use RIC. SLC is currently my home. I use RIC as I have to rent a car, etc. I find going through RIC is much more convenient that dealing with DCA. The security at DCA, car rental , refueling after car rental, etc- is more stress than I care for. At RIC, get my bag quickly, a short walk to the Avis preferred both, and off I go. The gas stations are right outside of RIC. For some travelers- RIC can work. I have also used IAD as a alternate to DCA, I never use BWI as it simply is not friendly. I can handle I95.....

bennos

DL PR states they positioned the flight from ATL to OKC, so it basically already was east before they moved it.

And then AA gets another round of negative publicity. The one thing AA PR should be doing behind the scenes here is making sure the return trip for these kids goes perfectly. Maybe even have an apology event ready. (Not saying they would, just that they should.)

Article linked in the OP and DL PR say they were going to RIC not DC, but even if they were going to DC why is that the most important question? Is it impossible that they had some events planned around RIC before getting in a bus to DC?

DCP2016

If anyone wants to argue how AA's operation is not in shambles right now, I present you this.

That and maybe hiring some humans to do gate agent work at OKC. Worst "agents" at any station, including contracted ones.

pbd456

Will we see the inbound auto cancelled due to not flying the inbound? Aa will get more publicity in that case.

richarddd

The story has hit media web sites, including https://people.com/travel/delta-flie...nceled-flight/ and https://www.dallasnews.com/business/...irlines-flight.

bchandler02

OKC is home base for me. Never had an issue with the agents here, although there are some new ones lately that I don't recognize. It's a pretty laid back airport overall.

wetrat0

I'm guessing you weren't going into DC proper. I am willing to bet these kids were going to the National Mall, not the Potomac Mills mall. RIC might be more convenient than DCA if they were the same distance from your destination (Fredricksburg for example), but it's not worth between 1.5 and 4 hours on I-95, especially if it means adding a connection. DCA is one of the easiest-to-navigate major-city airports anywhere. Gate to curb in 5 minutes, and it's just minutes outside the city itself. I agree that BWI is not so convenient for DC (although it's still closer than RIC) but they could have flown nonstop on WN. The point is even if you consider RIC to be relatively close (which I do not when accounting for DC traffic) it adds an unnecessary connection, which adds one more chance that something could go wrong.

It's about managing risk traveling with a group of kids; with this kind of travel it's best to keep it simple. Not trying to blame the pax here or take away from a great gesture by DL, but I do think it's legitimate to suggest that a connecting flight to RIC followed by a possibly long drive in DC-area rush hour traffic was not the smartest choice in this particular situation, when they could have had a non-stop to any of the three major airports in the reason.

Linked article quotes the group leader saying "these 5th graders need to get to Washington, DC we’ve been planning this for over a year.” Multiple other articles also confirm they were going to DC. Re: "the most important question", it was intended to be slightly snarky. But as I explained above, from a risk management point of view (how many failure points are there?), it's actually an important question when planning travel. If they had flown on a non-stop flight the chance is lower that it would have been canceled.

dls25

Yeah, I really don't get the bashing of AA staff on this. Good for DL, they did a nice thing but think the AA staff did the best they could do. People on this thread are bashing AA like a charter flight is a totally reasonable expectation when a flight is cancelled.

AlwaysAisle

I think your question possibly can easily become out of the scope of what FT is about...which is AAdvantage program here..., but, 41 people were trying to travel to gather. I will guess it would have been nothing surprising to be difficult to find a flight availability with 41 seats on a flight to begin with. It is almost certain that the group worked with a group department of a travel agent or AA group sales. It is possible that if 41 people wanted to travel together on certain given day, one option presented was to fly all together to RIC and charter a bus to their destination in DC. It is possible that even with AA group sales department involved if 41 people wanted to travel on same flight to DCA then AA could not get discount fares to all 41 passengers, will ended up paying pretty much close to full fare.

When need to move 41 people together there will be a lot different logistics come in play, which is whole different from family of 4 traveling together.

pinniped

Really? I've rented cars for years at DCA and find it to be a pretty normal operation, if not a little better than normal because I don't have to ride a bus. Sure, not quite as simple as a much smaller airport, but also not the mess than IAD is when it comes to rentals. I've also had years where I was leaving my own car at DCA - I also found that pretty hassle-free, again because I can walk and not wait for a bus.

I mean, if you're working an hour south of DCA, then maybe I'd think about RIC. But for the MD/VA suburbs and DC itself, it seems like overkill to drive two hours just because the rental cars are a little longer walk than they probably are at RIC.

Lots of places to refuel the car within a mile or two of DCA.

As for the kids, I can see where RIC was needed to get 41 seats together, although if they really booked 1 year (or at least many months) in advance, as the chaperone said, it seems like they could have gotten one of the three DC-area airports.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

We forget that the agents at OKC may have had a horde of paxs to try to re-accommodate. One agent spending time on the phone trying to secure a plane and crew for those 41 paxs may have meant other paxs standing in line even longer. Most paxs have no idea what to do when their flight is cancelled so they stand in a long line either at the gate or at a custom service desk (which I doubt there's one for AA at OKC).

AlwaysAisle

Getting 41 seats on a flight, possible. But I think getting fares for all 41 together which was within the group's budget possibly was totally different story. AA rep once said on CNBC that on typical 737 flight only 10-15 tickets are sold under least expensive fare offered for that particular flight. Even with AA group sales working with them likely they had to figure thing around to come within the group's budget.