Quarantine

I have an upcoming flight from EWR-BGR tomorrow evening. Upon checking FlightAware, however, I found that this particular flight for the same time was cancelled yesterday evening. It was also cancelled five times in the past week and a half.

Should this happen to me, is it possible to get United to fly me on AA, for example? UA only flies twice a day to BGR, whereas there are more options with AA to fly in the morning from LGA.

Long story short, I need to get on a ferry in time to an island in Maine (last ferry is at 5pm), so I can’t go with United’s options with their two flights the next day should my flight get cancelled.

HNLbasedFlyer

You could always hedge your bets and book a refundable AA flight - the problem with UA putting you on a AA flight is the AA option may sell out or UA does not give you that option.

WIRunner

Do you need to go into BGR? You could always get moved to PWM, PQI is not an attractive option in the event of cancel, because of where it is located.

Have fun in Maine.

Quarantine

Ah I see! Those AA flights in the morning are pretty pricey right now :/ I vaguely remember that UA has agreements with AA and Delta to rebook their passengers on, but I’m not sure how that’s actually done in practice.

Hmm that’s true! The issue for me is that there’s only one bus that gets to this small town where the dock is, and it only runs once a day. But I’ll also check if PWM is an option I could go with. Thank you so much!

PTahCha

If this is for Thursday, 7 July, there are no non-stop AA options to BGR out of LGA, which means that the flight has to cancel before 6:30am so you can get on the 8am DCA flight out of LGA and make your ferry.

You are better off on the DL nonstop out of LGA, and that would put you into BGR at 12:20pm or 4:01pm for off-line options.

jsloan

They do have such agreements. If the flight is canceled due to something under UA’s control, you may be able to get them to put you an AA or DL flight at no cost to you. If it’s not something under UA’s control — e.g., weather, or ATC-forced flight reductions — they will likely demur.

Getting rerouted to PWM, and then driving from there, would likely be your fastest / least expensive option in that case.

Quarantine

That's right! My UA flight is for Thursday, 7 July (9.56pm - 11.28pm). I would probably know at the gate if the flight's canceled, and then hope they'll rebook me when I ask on a flight that gets out of LGA. EWR is pretty far from where I live.

You're also right about DL nonstop out of LGA! I think I misremembered when I wrote AA previously. I just saw that UA actually does have a flight out of EWR on Friday, 8 July from 9.10am - 10.48am, but having to travel all the way to EWR again would be a pain for me, unless they could put me up in a hotel in EWR.

Ah interesting. Would staffing shortages be considered as something under UA's control? I don't see a reason on FlightAware why these flights were cancelled so many times in the past week and a half, but it feels like that's the main reason these days.

Thanks a lot. I'll keep that PWM option in mind!

mahasamatman

My guess is that United will blame ATC shortages before their own.

dblumenhoff

Staffing shortages are unlikely to be the immediate cause. Staff shortages are the indirect cause that they are likely to avoid pinning it on.
Say an earlier flight is late getting in because of weather, and staff times out. No staff is available to cover them due to staffing shortages. Was your flight canceled due to weather or staffing shortages? Well, both, but the airline is going to say weather.
Broadly speaking, way more flights are being canceled due to staffing because they don't have the resiliency to respond to regular disruptions, which is what we hear about in the news. But on a flight by flight basis, the airlines are not pinning it on staff shortages.

PTahCha

Looks like the flight departed early and is scheduled to arrive 25 minutes early.