EAJuggalo

Good morning, I'm trying to find out why WN742 MKE-MCO was cancelled this morning. My understanding was the plane scheduled arrived last night, so not sure why this one would have been cancelled this morning. Also what time was the cancellation made if that's available. I'm scheduled to fly this tomorrow for a work trip. I have a back up booked with DL, but would prefer a nonstop vs connecting in ATL and this flight leaves two hours later than the DL. Do I bite the bullet and cancel the nonstop, taking the DL connection or risk it and hope WN can get me there tomorrow if it gets cancelled for some reason?

NoStressHere

Because of the storms, flights are all messed up. Incoming planes can be rerouted to fly a different flight, or delayed due to weather, crew, equipment, etc.

I don't think you will find the real reason or get a solid answer for the other flight.

EAJuggalo

Is there a way to find out which plane was scheduled to fly todays flight before it was cancelled? If it was that the plane wasn't in MKE this morning I get it and will watch my incoming plane this evening. If it was there and they reassigned it to a different flight I'm much more likely to take my backup.

smmrfld

If you absolutely have to be at your destination, fly today/tonight and eliminate much of your worry.

joshua362

Flight aware should have the history. However, I doubt the reason for a delay / cancellation yesterday is going to predict whether it goes tomorrow outside of a continuing weather event.

You'll never know the true why and hows or time something is done, they'll never seem logical to all parties affected. Once I (smartly) sat in an airport hotel parking lot in SJC waiting for a redeye to JFK that was pushed from 11 pm to 2 am. It was running behind all day but JetBlue insisted it was going on the eve of a holiday weekend. At 11 pm local, they finally cancelled despite being 3 hours airborne already to pick us up. Why they could not do this before they left JFK 3 hours earlier was mind blowing...

EAJuggalo

FlightAware does not have the history because once the flight is cancelled they swap over some other tail number to that flight. According to FlightAware the plane has been sitting at MKE for a week. FlightRadar24 came through though. Plane that was supposed to fly MCO-MKE last night was swapped out and ran MCO-PVD instead, meaning no plane here to make the flight. I guess I'll wait and see if the inbound from MCO makes it tonight before cancelling one of the flights.

Don't absolutely have to be at MCO tomorrow morning, but have to get there at some point tomorrow.

smmrfld

Then keep your existing WN flight, IMO.

NextTrip

As they say in the financial industry, "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Same holds true for airline flights!

NoStressHere

Finding original plane or any other data is a waste of time right now. Let me repeat, a waste of time.

Way too many things are changing due to weather.

hotturnip

Just be certain that Southwest will cancel flights when no other airline does, and vastly prefers to refund you than to try to re-schedule you. Zero customer service during IRROPS.

guflyer

I keep seeing it mentioned in the news that Southwest is the airline that cancelled the most flights because of weather when there is a story about flight cancellations. Is this because of the way their network is structured, or are they just more apt to cancel flights than the other airlines?

Does this mean that when there is inclement weather, the other major airlines are more reliable than Southwest and one should fly them instead if there is somewhere that one needs to be?

EAJuggalo

The way their network is structured is part of it. I was watching the plane that was supposed to be on my flight this morning. It started at SMF, went PHX, LOU, MCO. Then was supposed to be MCO-MKE. WN swapped tails for my flight from an 800 to a MAX that has been at MKE for 30 hours now since MKE-DCA was cancelled yesterday. An incredibly antiquated crew scheduling and equipment scheduling system also makes it more difficult to recover as we saw in the Christmas meltdown last year. Finally, the places that WN has large operations almost all got hit with winter weather, including places that don't normally see it. DAL, HOU and BNA all had significant winter weather. In addition to MDW and BWI where it's kind of expected. I believe that other airlines recover better, but don't think there's any material difference between them during weather events. Head over to the AA forum and see how many people there are complaining about the 3-4 hour rolling delays before cancelling.

Cledaybuck

Southwest doesn't have a regional "partner" to make their numbers look better. Let's look at cancellations from yesterday.
Southwest - 440
United - 362
Republic - 298
American - 222
Skywest - 195
Endeavor - 171
Alaska - 106
PSA - 165
Mesa - 62
Envoy - 51
Delta - 49
CommuteAir - 45
GoJet - 30
Piedmont - 20
Virtually all those regional flights are flights for AA, UA, AS, or DL.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/cancelled/yesterday