Question on 6-8 flight cancellations
 

Just a question here from someone not all that knowledgeable on cancellations. My fiancee was booked on Friday afternoon from AVL-MDW through Detroit. Weekend trip, was to have arrived home Sunday night. Flight from AVL to Detroit was cancelled. She called and was told the cancellation was due to weather. Weather in AVL wasn't bad at all, there was a line of strong storms through the midwest though. They said they couldn't get her on the next flight either, Saturday morning, since it had been cancelled as well due to weather (already? at 2:00 Friday afternoon?). She tried to rebook for end of July and was told that she'd have to pay the difference in fare plus a $100.00 change fee since this was weather related. Came to like $300.00 she'd have to pay in change fees altogether.

After reading the next day about some problems at LaGuardia that caused many flights throughout the east to be cancelled, was this really weather related? And is it typical on a cancelled flight like this to have to pay that much to rebook? Neither of us had ever had this happen before. I would appreciate any thoughts any of you may have, and thank you!

Weather will affect departures and arrivals in your local airport plus will impact flights down the line. If a plane needs to get from A-B-C but weather interferes with A-B, B-C will also be affected even if the weather is perfect at B/C.

If NW claims that weather is the reason for the delay you will have little recourse. I suggest is that you call back a few times and try to get a sympathetic agent on the phone. Any chance you can be a little flexible with dates?

Good luck and sorry about your misfortune.

BTW, welcome to FT (1 post per year is pretty good!).

I do a lot of reading, just not that much posting. :)

I told her she should try back and maybe get a different agent, the one she talked to wasn't sympathetic at all and was borderline rude. She can be a little flexible with dates, problem is that Asheville seldom has decent airfares, and she was real lucky to get the $187 fare from AVL-MDW at all.

Thanks for your response!

You're in luck. NW has issued a weather waiver for flights on 6/8 and AVL is included in it. Read this:
http://www.nwa.com/features/weather.shtml

It's related because NW, like most legacy carriers, has fairly complex routing for it's planes. Weather on the east coast can ripple problems in the midwest and even west coast. The complex routes allow airlines to eek out a little more efficiency. However, the airlines pay very good bean counters to figure out what percentage of PAX are going to be totally SOL because of the nature of the complex routes. As airline rules become more draconian in terms of refunds and changing flights they have less to worry about complex routes creating trouble for the bottom line.

This is one area that LLC do really well in. Most of them have fairly straight forward routes.

At that point, she should have asked to be rerouted on a different airline, something like maybe US Air to Charlotte and then from there to ORD.

Weather can create all kinds of problems, planes get out of position, crews run out of time etc.

I once had a trip where I had to fly from DTW to Richmond VA via Pittsburg on US Air. The US Air flight was scrubbed due to weather and I wound up flying making the trip via DCA.

Bob H

Generally, when there is a significant weather issue in a region of the country, a weather waiver is issued which allows all flights during the affected time period to rebooked within a certain window without penalty. In the event of a cancellation of a flight, a full refund is available should you wish to reschedule outside the rebooking window (which is generally about 10 days from the original weather issue that prompted the change of the reservation.

Thanks. Unfortunately, probably won't work for her. She can't get back up there til end of July which falls outside those parameters.

:(

Unfortunately, a weather waiver is designed to allow people to rebook within a few days after the event at no charge in the hopes that they can salvage the trip. It isn't designed to allow people a free trip back there anytime they like as much as we might want it to be.

She should have the right to a refund as her trip was probably a "trip in vain" (Google that if you don't know what that means).

Yeah, it should fall into the "trip in vain" parameters. She was going up there to buy a wedding dress (we're getting married in Vegas 7-7-07), but luckily when we were in Louisville last weekend she found one up there. So she was just going to Chicago to visit her sister. Now she can attend a tax seminar up there at the end of July and her boss would probably pay the difference, so we'll just have to see what the cheapest alternative is. Book now, pay the difference, or take the refund, wait it out and see if the fare goes down again.

The problem wasn't really weather. The problems cascaded well into Saturday since many flights did not reach their destinations at all on Friday -- so many Saturday AM flights were cancelled (including mine).

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/09/Wo...omputer_.shtml

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding.

I just read this morning that July 7th (7-7-07) is expected to be the busiest single day EVER for weddings in Las Vegas!

Thanks! We booked the wedding over a year in advance and are glad we did. We're having a nice reception at Lawry's Prime Rib and I'm sure if we had waited that wouldn't have happened. Unbelievable how much room rates and the like have gone up, a lot of our guests ignored our warnings about the date and are now paying through the nose for their hotel rooms.

I'm an MKE native by the way, MKEbound!