Always Travel Ready

What's up with Delta? Tonight they canceled flight #4554 leaving from Atlanta headed to J in New York City. They said that it was being canceled due to weather. What a crock. We called our car service to tell them about the cancellation, and they were surprised and said there was no problem with flight arrivals in JFK but when they checked on the flight they were told that the plane was having mechanical causing a delay. Our rep called once again once the flight was officially canceled and was told it was canceled due to weather. Delta is putting these passengers on standby for the next flight leaving 1 1/2 hour later and arriving in Newark. I find it very interesting that if the flight was in fact canceled due to weather why are all other scheduled flights arriving in JFK and how is it safe for the Newark flight to leave as scheduled going to the same geographical area? I would appreciate any advice as to handle this matter with Delta. I believe that we are entitled to some sort of compensation especially considering our chances of getting a seat on the flight to Newark seem slim to none.

[This message has been edited by Always Travel Ready (edited 04-14-2002).]

trav2000

Is it possible that the inbound flight into Atlanta is the problem?

JS

Ask for an involuntary refund (Rule 260 I believe). You may have to add some of your own money to buy a ticket on another airline. Or take the standby offered.

stef315

This happens all the time in Alaska. It's usually because there are not enough passengers on the flight.

I've had the 10:30 flight from Barrow to Anchorage cancelled due to "mechanical difficulties." They just rebooked me on the 7pm! That's 8 1/2 hours. I asked if it was just delayed since it was mechanical and they said "No. Cancelled." Of course this was at about 9:30. They already knew they couldn't get the plane fixed.

I usually just go with it up here but that bugged me because it was a Saturday. I had been gone for awhile and had to be at work on Monday. The flight arrived around 10pm so I basically had Sunday for my weekend (which included doing all the laundry from the trip!).

I'd say it sucks but 1 1/2 hours isn't that long. Maybe I'm just used to it. I usually plan on about an hour delay of some sort.

Family flyer

The rule is actually Rule 240. If weather causes a flight cancellation you aren't entitled to compensation.

RSSrsvp

You should really post this on the DL board. There are people there that should be able to tell you the real reason for the cancellation.

svpii

Undoubtedly good advice about getting specific help on the DL forum. BUT, I think there is a global issue here as well. There have been many flights I've had cancelled where the official excuse was 'weather' - at least that's what the passengers in the area were told. I have suspected on several of these that weather was not at all the reason, and that perhaps they were stating this precisely to avoid anyone trying to exercise Rule240. Notable in my memory was a flight to BOS where there was no weather anywhere on east coast.. none in the departing city, clear as a bell in BOS, no thunder boomers anywhere on the weather channel (which I watched while cooling my jets in the US club for several hours waiting for the next flight).

Do you think this happens? And how can you verify the real reason - since I would think they couldn't get away with using a false weather claim in any official way.

Always Travel Ready

Update still in Atlanta now 8AM my original flight should have left at 8:10 PM. Have been in the airport since 6:00 hoping to get out on standby to flights have left with no room. All Delta gave was a $10 food voucher and a discount coupon for the Hilton. According to our car service in NY all flights were arriving in JKF with no problem last night. When I questioned this Delta said this was smaller plane and it was too dangerous to fly. Interesting as the weather was not a problem for Delta's other flights or other airlines

[This message has been edited by Always Travel Ready (edited 04-15-2002).]

JS

No, involuntary refunds are covered by Rule 260.

http://www.delta.com/pdfs/contract_of_carriage.pdf

Weather, ATC, strike, etc. (force majeure), do not nullify Rule 240 or 260 -- what you lose is a free hotel room. You always have the right to get an involuntary refund if you cannot be re-accommodated within a reasonable amount of time.

drtravels

Is 1 1/2 hours not reasonable?

Dudster

Remember that weather at the city of origin of the [b]aircraft[b] may cause your delay or cancellation. For instance, a month or so ago, my flight MSP-EWR was delayed 5 hours because of weather in DEN, where the aircraft originated.

Now, I'm not saying that this happened in your case. It could have been any number of things. Often, the gate agents don't receive very good information. They may be told it is a weather cancellation, even if the real reason is something else. One possiblity is that delta decided to use your aircraft on a different flight (to replace a plane with, perhaps mechanical difficulties). This is probably done when the other flight has far more passengers and/or it is much more difficult to reacommodate those passengers than the ones on your flight (such as the other flight being the last one that day, while your route has more flights). Some of us do suspect that airlines will occaisionally cancel planes for economic reasons. I think this is likely very rare, however, economic decisions do likely factor into the decision to cancel a flight to use the aircraft on a different flight.

zrs70

It's quite rare that an airline would cancel a flight because of loads. In this case, the plane that's going to NY has to pick up passengers in NY to go to its next destinations. Cancelling this flight would create a domino effect.

BearX220

Oh ho ho. Guess you've never hung around the Alaska terminal at LAX around 500p-800p on any weeknight. They schedule LAX-SEA flights to leave about every 30-45 minutes or so, but invariably at least one is cancelled and the loads combined. It's absolutely standard practice. I went through a six-month period in 2000 or '01 when I almost never came home on the flight number I was booked on.

I don't know if it's because they cancel southbound trips for the same reason and therefore don't have the metal at LAX for all their published northbound runs, or they knowingly publish more flights than they can operate and just cancel the lightest-booked one, or if it's cheaper for them to overnight a/c on Mexico services at LAX than to fly them up to SEA and back one-third full.

But if an airline person tells you soberly that trips are "never" cancelled because of light loads, don't believe it.

rankourabu

My flight was delayed out of KIX last summer for 8 hours because of a typhoon, but I arrived at my destination only 3 hours late. Still received 10000 miles and the standard dicount voucher, phone card, airport meal.
I guess you just have to ask.

J0HN

On Continental I used to fly the red eye LAX-Newark and then book the first morning flight into Syracuse. I had that morning flight cancelled due to "weather" related reasons 4 out of 4 times in a four month period.

The first time it happened I was informed before my flight left LAX the night before. The next flight of the day was cancelled also, and all 12 of the passenegers (from the first two flights plus the third flight of the day) that had been stranded at EWR got on the plane. There was definitely no weather issue at SYR (the sun was out and no snow--I spoke to people that said it was like that all morning), and the travel weather map on TV listed no weather delays throughout the country.

The solution for the remaining three "weather" delays: after landing in EWR I would hop on a plane into Boston and then go to Syracuse. 500 extra OnePass Miles, and I would always arrive within ten minutes of my originally scheduled arrival time.


[This message has been edited by J0HN (edited 04-15-2002).]