Thought maybe someone could give me a little advice regarding compensation for cancelled flights on United. My flight today has been cancelled out of ORD, along with apparently about 70% of all flights out of ORD. The agent blamed "air traffic". This seem to be affecting all the other carriers as well, as rebooking was not possible.

This one is new to me. I get weather, mechanical, etc all the time. Just wondering if this cancellation and rebooking (now arriving 24 hours later than previous scheduled departure) entitles me to anything.

Any advice? Thanks,
Charles

<sarcasm>
Yes, absolutely. You are entitled to punitive damages as a result of emotional trauma. Hundreds of cases won, with millions awarded! If not emotional trauma, then I'm sure you could argue that you were injured somehow by the cancellation.
</sarcasm>

Excuse me if I sound trite, but no, darnit. I get delayed and cancelled all the time and I don't whine about it. Just look at your journey as an adventure; when things don't go as exactly planned, suck it in and go with the flow. Use the extra time to enjoy wherever your stuck at... be it Chicago or Kathmandu. If life was only about the destinations, we might as well just die and get to the final destination right away... life is really about the journeys.

The only caveat I would offer is that if you ask politely, you can probably get a meal voucher, and since it sounds like you have to spend the night somewhere, a hotel voucher. And finally, airlines blame ATC all the time. It's the new fallback excuse for any delay/cancellation... :P

As a rule of thumb, when there is a delay to Air Traffic Control or weather they will seldom compensate you for the delay. These are the two factors that are out of their control, which they will use to explain any delays. The best thing that you can do when these two factors occur, is to ask for a meal voucher at the airport or a re-route through another city (this of course depends on where they delay is located). Trying to get a hotel voucher really depends on your attitude with the agent and status. Most times they will try to push off a heavily discounted hotel room that you will pay for, due to these delays.

Wow, thanks for helpful response. And for pointing out the sarcasm (twice). Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it. And thanks for the advice. It may be the single least useful piece of information I've gotten from these boards. Life is an adventure? Ok but I missed my meeting. Maybe my client has enjoyed the adventure of me not being there on time.(Should I point out that I am being sarcastic here? Or do you get it?)

"Sucking it in" and "going with the flow",
Charles

Also be advised that getting them to put you up in a hotel is really only for connection airports according to rule 240. They will not (usually) put you up in your origin or final destination cities.

Hmm! I think if you get canceled and have a good reason not to go ahead with the flight, you can get a refund even if the ticket wasn't refundable. (As far as a hotel voucher goes, that rule doesn't make sense to me--you are usually just as fouled up by being stuck in the final-destination city as you would be in a connecting city.)

Your delays are surely due to severe weather the Central U.S. is experiencing today-- thunderstorms and tornados. Since those are out of the airlines' control, they are unlikely to offer any compensation-- in these situations, sometimes even meal and hotel vouchers are hard to come by.

BTW-- the average arrival/depature delay at ORD is 5-6 hours this afternoon, according to ATC.

[This message has been edited by dw (edited 05-18-2000).]

For Charles, compensation varies so much that asking about it never hurts. You can see on these boards where some have gotten miles, vouchers, and certificates just for inconvenience and being decent about it. Don't get dissuaded by subtle sarcasm.

When I "misconnected" once, due to ATC delays, I declined to stay overnight for the next night's departure and instead cancelled my trip and was returned to my origin for free and also granted a full refund of a nonrefundable ticket (I only asked them to waive the change fee). That was on a different carrier though. If you know what you want ask courteously and firmly. Often it is within their power to grant it.

Having said that, I myself would not ask for anything in the particular instance you described. Kinda goes with the territory.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about... you're stressing out too much about the situation! So your flight is cancelled... by all means, try to negotiate the best solution to the situation. But if the best solution ends up being... you don't get there 'til tomorrow... what are you going to do? Cry about it all afternoon? I'm just telling you that instead of spending your time trying to figure out what the airline "owes" you, just go and enjoy your time. Yes, your client meeting is an unfortunate casualty, but are you going to keep stressing about it all day? Please don't, for your own sake! Give your client the call, and gee... my clients are usually pretty understanding about delays that are totally beyond my control. And if they're not, well, you take some abuse, maybe lose their respect or even the order... okay, I'm sorry then, but again... don't dwell on it. Go on to the next one. Stuff happens, to everyone, and if we spent less time on the blame and compensation, IMHO we'd be a happier society.

Also, <sarcasm> means "sarcasm on" and </sarcasm> means "sarcasm off" a la HTML. Sorry I got a little too techno-junkie there. And if you'd read all the way to my third paragraph, I did point out what I thought you should ask for in your situation, so I feel dissed that you think my post was totally useless to you.

I should note that I'm in the exact same boat you're in right now (and have been many times in the past). My flight tomorrow morning was canceled, and the only flight that I've been able to confirm is Saturday morning. I'm waitlisted on every flight out tomorrow. I'm going to the airport in the morning, cell phone in hand, to standby for those flights. I'll have my laptop so I can take care of some reports and e-mail. I'll also have some paper and a pen with me so I can catch up on some letters I've been meaning to write. If I don't get out of here... no big deal. I'm not going to hold United responsible for anything.

My flight is out of ORD tomorrow and after seeing this,I'm wondering whats going to happen to my flight tomorrow.I fly to HKG tomorrow.Is it really ATC related?Are International flights affected?I tried to call United but they've got me on hold for the past 30mins.

Just got thru to United.They say its partly the weather and partly the situation with the pilots.I'm sure you should get the compensation though.It seems that only domestic flights are affected and not International.

[This message has been edited by UNITED (edited 05-18-2000).]

I agree...What you would have been likely to get if you asked at the airport is perhaps a meal and/or hotel voucher. Also sometimes, depending on the agent, they might upgrade you without any certificate for a flight in your itinerary. Also agree that delays and canceled flights are very very routine. Really...you need to check the weather before you go somewhere (not just you...but anyone), and if it is bad, or forecast to be bad, you should probably leave early if you absolutely must get to a specific place...because in weather like today all airlines are going to have massive cancellations. If you are in a future situation where bad weather is forecast, your best bet would be to go to the airport say a day early, and they might let you travel waiving the change fee, etc. Often, the telephone reservations agents will only waive it if the given airline has some sort of organized effort to get people out early...but the airport will have more latitude to waive it if you are trying to get out ahead of weather.