The Situation

The only time load becomes a factor is during IRROPs, when DL is calculating how to inconvenience the fewest people. During normal operations or even mild IRROPs, that plane is flying. A couple of weeks ago, I was on a 753 with 195 empty seats. They actually boarded Y first (did not do preboards), then F as the cleaning crew was still working on F and they wanted to get the flight out early. A few people in F did move to the back after receiving their PDB

LINDEGR

It is ILLEGAL for an airline to cancel a scheduled flight simply because of a low passenger count.

The Situation

I have a really hard time believing it is truly "Illegal." It is clearly a breach of contract in which they have to provide alternate arrangements or a refund, and not very good customer relations, but even with all of the excessive laws in this country it seems like a stretch. Just before I could no longer credit AS flights to DL and just before DL started SEA-GEG flights, so that must have been 5 years ago, which was one of the last times I flew AS, flying SEA to GEG and back. The outbound went MX, so they swapped the Q400 for a 737. Next day, when I returned, the 737 was still sitting in GEG and all of the evening flights had very light loads. I was not happy when I arrived at the airport for my 6pm flight and they told me that my flight and all of the rest of the evening flights (3 or 4) had been CX due to light loads and they were running a special section with the 737 at 11pm. There were 14 people on the flight.

flyerCO

Was there weather issues or strike going on? Also the DL/AS partnership is only maybe 1.5 from being over, not 5 years.

flyerCO

Where is this law written?

Old Hickory

A DL regional carrier would often cancel flights in order to fill a later flight. This happened regularly on the ATL-CHA evening flights. This was a few years ago but was a regular occurrence.

kop84

Yeah I don't know if it's illegal, but pretty much every plane is needed somewhere else if there is a scheduled flight for it regardless of load.

Subbing out any one plane for a light load is probably not worth the hassle. It's not like the airline doesn't know well in advance the load is going to be light. What is MUCH more likely to happen would be that flight gets axed 3ish months out. DL has historical data to know when people book certain routes. So at 3 months out of a flight is only 50% as full as they think it should be, they might reduce the schedule for that day as a sked change, and they'll move the handful of people onto other flights, especially if there are multiple segments that day.

For example if DL flies 5 flights a day from X to Y, and one of the flights is well under where it's projected, they may reduce the flights that day to 4 especially if it's one of the 3 middle flights. OR they'll do an equipment swap and sub a smaller plane.

But once you get to DoD there is a virtual certainty that flight goes unless there is weather or a mechanical...and DL is highly unlikely to game it saying it's a mechanical when really it's just a light load. DL cares very much about their DOT stats.

FranckM

Even if the first flight is almost empty and the airline would think of cancelling the leg, maybe the load on the way back is 99% so they need to operate both

anniegray

The Situation

No WX, no strike. Simply no pax that evening. That was the reason the AS agent told me for why they canceled the block of flights and it made sense given that after CX all those flights, they still only had 14 people on a 737. GEG is very boring when you have already turned your rental car in and have got a 5 hour wait for a flight - I got a nice voucher from that though. Right that the partnership ended last spring in that you could no longer book codeshares. The partnership started phasing out well before then. One of the first cuts was that you could no longer credit AS flights to skymiles. This coincided with DL beginning service on a handful of routes that AS was the dominant carrier for. One of the first such routes was SEA-GEG. That was probably 4 years ago, and this happened a year before that (hence the reason I was on AS, not DL).

LINDEGR

The Federal Registry.

flyerCO

1)that isn't a law/rule. The register is where the government post notices, normally in regards to rule making.
2)obviously am asking for the federal statue where this is written.

mkt80

Well you were all right! In the end a few extra passengers showed up but from what it looked like every passenger had an entire half row to themselves with the last few rows being completely empty. I also think it's the first time I've ever seen an F cabin so empty on a domestic flight.

wxman22

Ah, the good ol' days

RealHJ

Sadly, that is how flying used to be...back in the age of more competitive pricing, better flight schedules, far better passenger experience (over a decade ago).

One could book Y with a good chance of getting a row of 3 or 4 seats to lie down comfortably.