Hi All,

I'm in a situation that is unique to me. I'm in CLE trying to get to La Guardia (CO 3084) and our flight was initially delayed due to weather in the NY area. By the time the weather cleared, we had no pilot which is an Ops delay. Now we have a pilot again but we are on a weather delay again. My question is: if the flight gets canceled, will CO be able to 'blame the weather' even though we had a window that we could have reached our destination if Ops hadn't caused another delay? I hope the situation I've described is clear enough for some of the veterans here to give some advice. CO did pass out food coupons for the lack of pilot/Ops delay. Thanks all.

Of course they can. Since when does CO even need weather to blame "weather?"

That's why travel is so much less stressful if you're top tier at UA or AA, or Plat/Diamond on DL where they just seem to take care of you, regardless of fault.

I hope the OP brought a pillow as it seems his flight was cancelled. I wish the OP good luck in getting to LGA. (Unless you had a meeting in which you wanted to miss (the CO would have been the good choice)) .

Yep, life for the aristocracy over at AA and UA is obviously just pure perfection........

It's not perfection, it's just easier in these situations.

You don't have to bicker about how or why the delay happened or whose fault it is. You only have to bicker about which hotel they're gonna print the voucher for.

It's a customer handling aspect that CO does not offer to its Platinums, so you just have to be prepared to argue and/or possibly cover this cost yourself. It's a cost of doing business with CO.

I never had a problem with CO. As a plat, they've always taken care of me when they had a problem. But please don't let me get in the way of your constant bashing of CO......

Did they regularly pay your hotels during unscheduled weather overnights?

As for bashing, what is bashing about comparing the policies of the carriers. Of AA, UA, DL, and CO, CO is the only one, who, as a matter of policy, does not pay the hotels of their Plat and higher customers in the even of unscheduled weather overnights.

That's not bashing, that's a fact.

CO has always covered my hotel costs. This has included a flight cancellation due to WX.

Just one?

I can assure you it's not a matter of policy on CO, and it's not something you can count on. You did very well in that situation.

Believe it or not, just one WX related problem during the past five years that resulted in a cancellation (other CO flights I've been on that were affected by WX were simply delayed). It was the last flight of the night from IAH on COEx and we could not get into LFT due to severe weather associated with a rapidly moving cold front (we do get some storms here in Looziana and it currently looks like we'll have Tropical Storm Bonnie here by this Sunday evening). Anyway, we turned around and went back to IAH. I'm glad we did - there were tornadoes in the LFT area that night. We got a room at the on-airport hotel at IAH (the name escapes me - it's located between terms B and C) and CO paid for it. Of course, there have been other problems over years. However, whether it was MX related or a missed connection due to a late arrival or whatever, CO has always taken care of me. I continue to truly believe they compare quite favorably with the other domestic legacy carriers, all of which I've flown on many times since 1965.

No perfection..but I can tell you of 3 experiences in the past 2 months:
1-UA, flight delayed due to weather, (EWR-IAD) booked me on CO EWR-IAD without so much as a hassle. Well...their was a hassle...it took the UA agent ~17 minutes to get a CO agent on the phone.

2-UA booked me onto a non-*A carrier (DL) due to a mx delay in ORD. Delay was going to be less then 2 hours-and I only called to be 'protected', but the agent found a DL flight leaving shortly.

3-CO flight that was delayed due to mx (tire/wheel issues) EWR-YUL IIRC(or ottawa) at "A" gates next to AC plane scheduled to leave in ~40 min. Called CO, they said..get this..."WEATHER at the airport!!"....I requested her to look at the stats, as the pda site was showing mx...she did, and still said she couldnt switch me over to a different airline.

So...I know it is a small sample size...but 1 and 2 are MUCH closer to perfection then 3!!!

There has to be something in the CO training manual about blaming "weather" whenever possible, whether merited or not.

What did you end up doing? Did you fly the delayed CO flight? If so, did you file a DOT complaint for CO's behavior?