Nightmare Does Not Even Come Close: ATL-EWR 3/17-3/18
#16
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2000
Programs: UA Million Miler (lite). NY Metro area.
Posts: 15,069
I have to agree that some of the 'hostility' posted on this thread could/should have been worded in a more positive way. It's just as easy to make your point in a constructive and informative way.
I've never been a fan of piling up on a poster.
I've never been a fan of piling up on a poster.
#17
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: TUS and any place close to a lav
Programs: UA 1.6MM
Posts: 5,423
You say that you saw all the DL flights to EWR on the departure boards and wanted to try to standby for the DL flights as well.
You had a ticket on CO. Wouldn't you have had to ask the CO agent to endorse your ticket over to DL in order to standby for the DL flight to EWR?
You had a ticket on CO. Wouldn't you have had to ask the CO agent to endorse your ticket over to DL in order to standby for the DL flight to EWR?
#18
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Hyderabad
Posts: 4,843
Many people missed things much more important than 3 days of spring break.
So stop thinking you're the only one who has experienced a bad travel delay, because you aren't. And the fact that you shrugged off the cancellation notice the night before the flight doesn't earn you any points either.
#19
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Seattle,WA
Programs: Hyatt Diamond+, Alaska Airlines MVP, Priority Club Platinum
Posts: 2,682
It certainy is frustrating to go through such an ordeal yet get no sympathy but really it sounds pretty ordinary weather delay that all of us have experienced but some of us much worse. Sometimes our flights are cancelled because of mechancial problems or even light loads. While you claim to be wise beyond your 19 years I am sure this will serve as your intiation.
Oh my God! You knew it was cancelled and you went to bed. When have you ever seen a cancelled flight "change." I would have assumed that the plane never made it to ATL if you knew that early you should have been all over that phone. You should have known all your options when you got to the airport. I bet some called and got put onto the later flight. Even us seasoned vets kick ourselves when we get to the airport and have forgotten to check the "status" of a cancelled or delayed flight.
Wow but they got you out that day...
Careful as soon as you start doing that you may lose your place on the standby list. It did not sound like it happened here though.
How does the CO rep even put on on DL standby? I have never heard of that but maybe it is something new.
See your first quote.
I am sure you have more to your story and it was a horrible experience. Everyone of us has had them. I prefer to have them after and not before my vacations. Sometimes I am flying home for the weekend. My flight is pretty empty so the airline cancels the flight and I am sent scrambling to get home and of course I have a very special event or formal dinner planned with the family. Eventually hours late I get home. Don't be frustrated by the indifference you can get a lot from Flyertalk for your next 19 years of future travel.
You’ll just have to wait here, we can’t get you out until Tuesday
She told us we could switch from out Continental ticket to one from Delta. That meant we had 4 chances to get home on flights to New York.
The real kicker though was, the woman at CO never switched our tickets or put us on standby for anything.
Someone said they began cancelling flights Thursday night, no one told us that. Continental didn’t have any information about that on their web page.
I am sure you have more to your story and it was a horrible experience. Everyone of us has had them. I prefer to have them after and not before my vacations. Sometimes I am flying home for the weekend. My flight is pretty empty so the airline cancels the flight and I am sent scrambling to get home and of course I have a very special event or formal dinner planned with the family. Eventually hours late I get home. Don't be frustrated by the indifference you can get a lot from Flyertalk for your next 19 years of future travel.
#20
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Seattle,WA
Programs: Hyatt Diamond+, Alaska Airlines MVP, Priority Club Platinum
Posts: 2,682
It looks like the ATL to EWR flights on Saturday were much better than Friday. The problem is NO flight made it out of EWR to ATL after 11 AM on Friday so they probably did not have a plane for that very first CO flight. Only 3 of the 15 planes going out to EWR on Saturday were cancelled: CO 1154 8:10 AM, Expressjet 1221 12:20 PM and Airtran 578 10:59 PM.
All of the following Delta flights arrived either early or ontime: Delta 1408 8:15 AM (which is a CO codeshare), Delta 1615 10:15 AM, Delta 557 12:31 PM (which is a CO codeshare), Delta 915 3:45 PM, Delta 966 5:30 PM
All of the following Delta flight were just a few minutes late: Delta 758 2:10 PM, Delta 1010 9:45 PM (which is a CO codeshare)
(Airtran 572 8:00 AM was slightly late; Airtran 570 12:31 PM and Airtran 577 4:40 PM were early)
Continental Express 1221 12:35 PM status is unknown so it probably never took off and looks like it may have never left from EWR.
CO 1150 was scheduled for 3:45 PM but departed at 5:00 PM and arrived 107 minutes late.
Observations:
If you are going to be in ATL for a while you may want to consider flying Delta since that is their hub. I dropped them years ago because of similar things to what you are saying about CO except it was mechanical.
If you and your family are partial to CO, well then you can see they have tons of code shares with each other so you could have flown on a Delta plane but used a CO flight number BUT better yet just use a Delta flight number on a Delta plane but get CO points that way if something happens you will not have to go to the CO desk.
The airlines do not schedule many flights on Saturday night because people don't like to fly then but normally there would be additional CO flights.
So next time when relatives say the weather is really bad and you see your flight is cancelled THE DAY BEFORE you must be more proactive. IF you could have contacted someone they may have been able to place you on the Delta 8:15 AM flight since it is a CO code share.
All of the following Delta flights arrived either early or ontime: Delta 1408 8:15 AM (which is a CO codeshare), Delta 1615 10:15 AM, Delta 557 12:31 PM (which is a CO codeshare), Delta 915 3:45 PM, Delta 966 5:30 PM
All of the following Delta flight were just a few minutes late: Delta 758 2:10 PM, Delta 1010 9:45 PM (which is a CO codeshare)
(Airtran 572 8:00 AM was slightly late; Airtran 570 12:31 PM and Airtran 577 4:40 PM were early)
Continental Express 1221 12:35 PM status is unknown so it probably never took off and looks like it may have never left from EWR.
CO 1150 was scheduled for 3:45 PM but departed at 5:00 PM and arrived 107 minutes late.
Observations:
If you are going to be in ATL for a while you may want to consider flying Delta since that is their hub. I dropped them years ago because of similar things to what you are saying about CO except it was mechanical.
If you and your family are partial to CO, well then you can see they have tons of code shares with each other so you could have flown on a Delta plane but used a CO flight number BUT better yet just use a Delta flight number on a Delta plane but get CO points that way if something happens you will not have to go to the CO desk.
The airlines do not schedule many flights on Saturday night because people don't like to fly then but normally there would be additional CO flights.
So next time when relatives say the weather is really bad and you see your flight is cancelled THE DAY BEFORE you must be more proactive. IF you could have contacted someone they may have been able to place you on the Delta 8:15 AM flight since it is a CO code share.
#21
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Glasgow Scotland
Programs: Mucci Diamond Hairbrush.
Posts: 893
WOW! What an unsympathetic bunch most of you are. The OP was just getting off his chest what a very frustrating day he'd had. He did not ask for a lecture on what he should have done.
Chill folks!
Chill folks!
#22
In memoriam
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: IAD, BOS, PVD
Programs: UA, US, AS, Marriott, Radisson, Hilton
Posts: 7,203
Originally Posted by Sojourn
All your comments are a little harsh, I must say. It almost sounds like you don't have any sympathy for me.
included. But what you can get out of this is an idea of what you could
do next time to improve your own situation; it is almost inevitable that
there will be a next time.
#23
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Seattle & Seoul.... and now, Maastricht....
Programs: UA Mileage Plus, NWA WorldPerks deserter, Alaska Airlines Something-er-Other...
Posts: 1,882
Soujourn, sorry to hear about your experience. I myself have never had a situation quite like that (although I got stuck in SAN on Christmas Eve on a swim team trip and had to 'celebrate' with my family at a phone booth ). You'll probably find that delays like this can sneak up on you on any airline, but the nasty customer service doesn't help!
Hope that you're next trip is as ordinary as an evening at home! A nineteen year old FTer! Hopefully you'll be part of the community for years to come!
Peace! ^
#24
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2001
Location: South Bend, IN
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If all FT is is a place to "get stuff off your chest," it would not be very useful and many of us would not put the time and effort into it that we do.
#27
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Brielle, New Jersey
Programs: AMEX Rewards Plus Gold, SPG Gold, Continental and American
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A number of you mentioned I should have somehow contacted CO so I could be put on another flight. The 1-800 number was busy every time I called. It was the same for every single carrier. Believe me, I called every single one that flew to the Northeast and it was the same situation. Thankyou all for your suggestions, I'll learn from this like you said.
I'm going to write part two today. 4 hours on tarmac but I did get out on Sunday.
I'm going to write part two today. 4 hours on tarmac but I did get out on Sunday.
#28
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Join Date: May 2001
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A number of you mentioned I should have somehow contacted CO so I could be put on another flight. The 1-800 number was busy every time I called. It was the same for every single carrier. Believe me, I called every single one that flew to the Northeast and it was the same situation. Thankyou all for your suggestions, I'll learn from this like you said.
I'm going to write part two today. 4 hours on tarmac but I did get out on Sunday.
I'm going to write part two today. 4 hours on tarmac but I did get out on Sunday.
At least for me, lack of sympathy does not mean that we think you deserved what you had to go through. I have no doubt that it was extremely unpleasant. As for it being a nightm are, I get that that is a figure of speech.
#29
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 76
Happened to me a couple years ago trying to get from TPA to DFW...which was socked in by ice. I was on standby for three days.
Just roll with the punches. Sure, it's an inconvenience, but no one has been able to control the weather.
#30
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: OOL
Programs: VA Plat, QF LTS, UA MM, Hilton Diamond, Rydges Black, ,Le-Club Gold
Posts: 3,659
Thanks for the evocative trip report. Thankfully it's easy to ignore the idiots who infest boards like this and I hope we'll see more trip reports from you.
For CO and the other airlines, irrops like this are a financial nightmare (oops that word again). How to minimize that loss? Transfer as much of the cost as possible to "no-cost-externalities". The pax must wear the cost of lost time and confusion, as far as possible. Don't extend the airline's loss by taking time out to inform the passengers of the latest situation. Be "taken by surprise" by bad weather, year after year, and don't waste money on contingency plans.
Why wear the cost of extra-standby-staff for call centres, or better a standby-web-page with sufficient grunt to handle thousands of simultaneous re-booking enquries? Why bother to pay for standby-block-bookings of airport hotels when bad weather looms? No, the optimum strategy (to satisfy shareholders) is just to leave your existing staff to handle the wreckage as best they can, and make them go on working till they drop.
I hope one day airlines (and TSA) will be called to account for the billions of dollars of pax' time they waste.
For CO and the other airlines, irrops like this are a financial nightmare (oops that word again). How to minimize that loss? Transfer as much of the cost as possible to "no-cost-externalities". The pax must wear the cost of lost time and confusion, as far as possible. Don't extend the airline's loss by taking time out to inform the passengers of the latest situation. Be "taken by surprise" by bad weather, year after year, and don't waste money on contingency plans.
Why wear the cost of extra-standby-staff for call centres, or better a standby-web-page with sufficient grunt to handle thousands of simultaneous re-booking enquries? Why bother to pay for standby-block-bookings of airport hotels when bad weather looms? No, the optimum strategy (to satisfy shareholders) is just to leave your existing staff to handle the wreckage as best they can, and make them go on working till they drop.
I hope one day airlines (and TSA) will be called to account for the billions of dollars of pax' time they waste.