t325

Seems to happen a lot with Southwest. My employer uses TripCase, I've gotten notifications that my 8 PM flight is delayed earlier in the day, then I'll get another one stating it's on time. Dunno why, but I always plan on being at the airport at the scheduled departure time regardless of delay notifications.

Then there was the one time last month I got an email that it was delayed until 9:30 PM earlier in the morning, then in the afternoon, an e-mail that it was back to the original time, then we didn't take off until 1:30 AM. That was a fun night.

timfountain

Very rare. IMHO. 75 flights so far for this year (average is 120 flight segments per calendar year). On average I get a SNAFU about 10% of the time (I track this kind of stuff) and of those I have had 0 move up over the 'new' revised time. 0 Plenty have slipped and slipped and slipped an 5 were eventually cancelled.

ROCAT

On a daily basis I see ground stops cancelled early and and short flights being swapped into longer flights EDCT slots that they are not going to make. Yesterday I had a ground stop cancel 45 min early with no additional programs and got an ESP time in 15min. 20 min later a program came out, which if they missed the time window by a minute they would have been waiting.

darthbimmer

Exactly! Novice travelers are best advised not to take risks leaving the airport or arriving late just because a delay of X time has been announced. There are many ways a delay can be reduced significantly. Experienced travelers familiar with airline operations, however, can use their understanding of the systems to more accurately predict which delays can or can't be shortened.

For example, the three hour delay reverting back to on-time departure I mentioned above happened at a hub and really could only happen at a hub or a major outstation. When my flight from a smaller outstation shows a delay due to inbound aircraft, I check ops data to determine if the company could conceivably swap in another aircraft. Often the answer is no so I may take a more relaxed pace getting to the airport. Like the one time my HKG-SFO flight was delayed 8 hours. The inbound aircraft went mechanical and was still on the ground 1000s of miles away. Instead of leaving my hotel in mainland China at 0630 for ground transport and ferry to the airport I ate breakfast in comfort and left at 0830. I did have a problem, though, at the Shenzhen ferry terminal... but that's another story!

teddybear99

I wish airlines had a little more flexibility with their hubs when it comes to delays. There are many times a plane does an out and back to outlier cities so a plane swap should not be a major problem as it is coming back to the hub immediately. But, because things are planned months in advance (including maintenance), they can't swap a similarly configured plane for another one.

For example, this past Sunday, 8/21/16, Delta flight 2 was delayed for almost 5 hours as the equipment (a319) was coming in from FLL to it's NY hub and a ground stop was given from FLL due to the weather in NY. There were a few A319's sitting on the Tarmac for the next morning's flights, but we still had to wait until the flight arrived from FLL to use the same plane back to FLL. The next morning, our plane was going back to NY again, so why not swap out the plane and not take the delay?

Rebelyell

I missed a flight once because I arrived at the gate to find the flight had been delayed something like two hours. They had a new departure time posted. I left to get something to eat and when I returned whatever problem existed had been solved and the flight had left.

I also have had a flight leave 10 or 15 minutes early once or twice (leaving me behind), I think in anticipation of bad weather. That's really annoying.

LtKernelPanic

Admittedly I only fly a few times a year for leisure travel but it's pretty rare IME. The one time I can remember having a delay moved up was when flying home from ORD. The E145 we were supposed to fly home on went mx and was supposed to be delayed about 2.5 hours. AA must have dug out an old 145 from behind the shed (it was pretty crusty inside unlike the usual Envoy 145s that fly this route) but our 2.5 hour delay ended up only being about 45.


The way I handle delays is based on the airport. As an AA flyer if I'm at a hub (ORD, DFW, PHX, etc) or other large airport I'll stick around the gate or if I do leave the gate area I keep close watch on the flight's status. If I'm at home which is a small outstation and the inbound flight is delayed at ORD or DFW for two hours due to weather I'm not going to bother leaving for the airport until the inbound flight is in the air because AA doesn't keep any spare aircraft here so there's no chance of another plane making the flight.

navi_jen

Can and does.

Was in BOS (home airport) on Wed. B7 flight was delayed 2 hrs due to ORD weather. Went to the Emirates lounge (only lounge in Terminal C) to hang out. B7 board in the lounge showed the revised (2hr delay) takeoff.

Arrived at the gate 25 minutes before 'delayed' takeoff to board..and guess what. ORD ground hold had lifted, they loaded the flight early, and the plane was already pulling away from the gate when I arrived. Even tho airport monitors AND B7 online still showed the departure for the delayed departure timing.

I was super ticked. First time in 13 years that had occurred.

Andrew Holbert

I know this topic is old, but I am currently on Allegiant flying MYR to CLE. It was delayed 2 hours at first (24 hours earlier), even showing as the time on my boarding pass. An hour and a half before departure, the time changed to only one hour. 1 hour before the flight, it was changed to the originally scheduled time. The staff then turned the priority lane into a "Cleveland passengers only" lane., and the 40 others behind me ran to make the flight.

Just be careful...

ywgflyer

First time poster, long time lurker, yadda yadda yadda...

I've seen (and operated) flights that were moved back up slightly while we're taking a rolling delay, but it's not that common. Most of the time, the airline is going to try to stick to the new time -- the simple reason being that people will scatter as soon as they figure they won't be going anywhere for the next three hours. Some will find a snack, some will head to the bar, some will go back out of security because they need a smoke, some will find a quiet area clear across the terminal to lie down for a nap and charge their phones. None of these people will be remotely ready to go if the delay is suddenly moved back up by an hour or two, and now the gate staff have to track them all down via repeated pages on the PA containing a few dozen names of people who have departed the fix to whatever their happy place is. There'll probably be hell to pay in the media if the flight goes without a solid third of the people who were booked on it, so it's one of those things that, unless "operationally necessary", is best avoided. Yes, it does happen from time to time, but I couldn't begin to tell you the logic behind doing so -- during these delays, we (pilots) are one of two places -- either having a bite to eat somewhere in the terminal, or hanging out on board waiting for any more news on our delay. We do try to avoid boarding during a long delay -- nobody wants to be boarded, then told "we're not going anywhere for 4 hours, so sit tight".

A related issue happens in every Canadian airport that has pre-clearance -- the CBP post closes at a specified time, and that time is rigid (I've tried to squeak through, even in uniform, and been told no!). The delay won't be posted until the time the Customs post closes -- it prevents people from thinking "oh, my flight to Philly is delayed until 11pm, so I won't bother even going through until 10pm", only to find Customs locked up with the lights out when they show up.

pinniped

Had one just this past week.

LGA-MCI evening flight on Thursday. Thunderstorms approaching NYC, 6:30 scheduled departure.

I was following our originally-scheduled tail all day until it got canceled in ATL. Then they swapped us to a flight from MDW that was running 3 hours late. Then to a different MDW tail that would have put us an hour late. Then, finally, to the inbound MCI flight that was only 15 minutes late. We boarded and pushed back a half hour late. Then LGA went to a full ground stop for 30 minutes. When they released the ground stop, we taxied past about a dozen aircraft and were the first plane to take off. We landed about 45 minutes late.

The two flight tracker sites I use never showed our flight as canceled, but they did show the departure times moving later and then earlier as tail swaps happened. Southwest's own app only showed the one hour delay and then a 45 minute un-delay. It never displayed the 3 hour delay.

All airlines were canceling tons of flights. The two evening DL LGA-MCI flights were both canceled. I still don't know why our flight was chosen to operate reasonably close to normally and then given what appeared to be priority to get airborne. At multiple points during the evening, I figured I was minutes away from booking a morning UA flight out of EWR and heading across town to a Newark hotel. We got really, really lucky.

GadgetFreak

It happened to me once. A delay was posted and I went to the club (ORD) and was having some drinks at the bar and watching a baseball game on the TV. Decided to check the monitor to see how bad the delay had become. It hadn't gotten worse. It was leaving in like 2 minutes. I was very far from the gate. So I was on the next flight.

Rebelyell

It ALWAYS happens if you leave the gate area.