<p>My S was just assigned to an important project which requires him to fly to another city for the next 6 months at least. He flies in and out every week. His company will fly him where ever he wants for the weekends.</p>
<p>In the month he has been on this assignment he has had 4 cancelled flights. Not delayed but completely cancelled. This past weekend he came to visit us. He was suppose to land on Friday at 9:30am. On Thursday night at 10:30 he received an email that his morning flight was cancelled. They rescheduled him for a 4pm flight. It was also delayed and he flew into our town at 9:15pm. </p>
<p>Yesterday, he tried to get back. His initial flight was delayed for 30 minutes about 15 mins before was suppose to take off. He was connecting in OHare and that flight was completely cancelled. When he called (he’s been flying American), to reschedule they couldn’t get him to his city until Tuesday! He was so frustrated at that point that he is going to work remotely this week as that is an option and the company says if you can’t get there by noon on Monday to work remotely. His first flight continued to be delayed until 4pm.</p>
<p>When he talked to the agent at American, she said it was weather related and she can’t control the weather. He has not received any compensation for any of his cancelled flights as American has said that they all are weather related. These are just the flights that are cancelled, not delayed. </p>
<p>Any advice for him? Anyone who flys for business have any words of wisdom? Are other airlines better to fly on?</p>
<p>American sucks. As Batllo asks, the cities are important, as some places are only served by 1, possibly 2 carriers. I might look for a better connection than OHare. </p>
<p>One issue with the airline consolidation is you are pretty much stuck w United, Delta or American for most of the US. Some people love Southwest and JetBlue, but I’ve never used them.</p>
<p>I was less than halfway through the OP when I knew you were talking about American. They are notorious for this. Can he book on any other airline?</p>
<p>I was just reading about American, if it was really weather related, wouldn’t all the incoming/outgoing flights for that airport have been canceled. Was that the case?</p>
<p>I suggest Southwest since they fly through Midway which usually has less weather trouble than O’Hare. We did have some pretty bad storms come through last night! The flights all make one stop (no plane change) between Dallas and Chicago, then a plane change in Chicago. I think American flies small planes between Chicago and Pittsburgh so it’s more likely they wouldn’t mind cancelling. Southwest flies all 727’s so would have many more passengers to rebook if they cancelled plus more incentive to get their planes where they want them for continuing scheduling.</p>
<p>He said he was done with American. I don’t fly often and not much lately so I wondered if this was indicative of all airlines now or just American.</p>
<p>Another note - we drove past O’Hare twice yesterday afternoon (visiting my mom for an early Mother’s Day) and saw plenty of planes coming and going. So at least until 6 pm the airport was operating, albeit flights were undoubtedly delayed due to the passing thunderstorms. As I noted, Midway usually handles weather better than O’Hare.</p>
<p>I’ve flown only Southwest for a few years now in and out of Chicago, and am satisfied. DS flew back and forth to Pittsburgh during four years of college on Southwest and had very few issues; don’t think flights were ever cancelled.</p>
<p>Those are major cities, inluding Dallas, which is American’s main hub, so there are plenty of options. American has several (at least 4) daily non-stops from DFW to Pittsburgh, so no idea why he’s connecting in OHare.</p>
<p>Looking at expedia, there are lots of other connection options. The shortest of which is Delta through Mephis. (I would avoid Delta through Atlanta, as it’s a huge airport and you might need to run from one end to another). Several US Air options through Charlotte or Philly - I’m not a fan of US Scare, however. </p>
<p>Jet Blue - he would need to connect through Boston. suboptimal!</p>
<p>Don’t. O’Hare is one of the worst airports for weather related delays and missed connections. Flying a connecting flight through O’Hare is asking for trouble.</p>
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<p>American does have non-stop flights between Dallas - Fort Worth and Pittsburgh, so he can avoid the O’Hare problems and save some time versus a connection. Numerous other airlines have one-stop flights that connect through lower risk airports.</p>
<p>American declared bankruptcy in November. There are unhappy employees and there is going to be fallout for quite some time. They had been promising them for years, if you just keep taking these pay cuts, we won’t declare bankruptcy. I’m so glad I don’t work for them any more!</p>
<p>I can see there being sporadic weather this time of the year, with thunderstorms, but not something that should cancel for and not delay or reschedule, repetitively. Unless the airport is shut down and nobody else is getting out. Many times I’m sure airlines just use weather as the excuse so they have no responsibility. If they say they can’t get him out for days, start checking schedules, even of other carriers, and request to go on those flights. I have heard there are certain routes that airlines cancel often when the loads are low and they need the airplane elsewhere.</p>
<p>I always fly Delta or Alaska Airlines. Delta is expensive sometimes, but they always get me there. A couple of months ago, they cancelled a flight and just automatically rerouted me on American. Which I refused and just took a later Delta flight, because I didn’t trust American to actually get me there…Southwest is reliable also, if you don’t mind the cattle car drill. I would look at who has frequent flights to his destinations, so if something gets delayed, there are backups. I personally have no trust in United or USAir to get me there either.</p>
<p>I detest OHare and I agree with the others, why is he connecting when he could go direct? There should be a number of backups if he goes in the morning. I looked online and saw four direct flights DFW-PIT on the day I looked at. He should just take the first one, and in that case I would trust AA to get me there. Never connect when you could go direct, especially through ORD.</p>
<p>Sorry, I should clarify. He’s flying back and forth to Pittsburgh every week. We live in Michigan and he was flying out of Grand Rapids. He can fly wherever he wants on the weekends so instead of flying home, he came to see us. Since he has been flying American from DFW to Pittsburgh, he decided to use American to see us with a connecting in Chicago. Both flights to and from Pittsburgh to Chicago this weekend were cancelled. His last flight was cancelled and American could not get him on another flight until Tuesday.</p>
<p>He was trying to use American so he could up his frequent flyer status so that when there are flight delays he will have higher priority and build up mileage. I think he’s going to fly United from now on. Next weekend he was flying to Detroit and I think he is using Delta as he can fly direct. Company doesn’t care where he goes on the weekends so he is trying to visit friends and family since he’s young and single.</p>
<p>United is no prize either…I’m Platinum 1K and they treat me like dirt. </p>
<p>As we all say, avoid connecting through the BIG airports (Chicago, Atlanta, NYC) is the best way to avoid delays. For Pittsburgh, he can also fly into Cleveland and drive 2 hours if that makes a difference.</p>
Almost no one flies 727s anymore. Southwest flies all 737s.</p>
<p>Are his flights on the small American planes (American Eagle flights)? If so, I’ve noticed a lot of those seem to get canceled even when there are no weather issues. I fly Southwest over American.</p>
<p>It’s true that if there’s a weather related cancellation the airline doesn’t compensate but usually weather delays don’t result in a long delay - the airline, if they were decent, would look for the best alternatives which might mean rerouting through a different city.</p>
<p>He needs to look at alternative airlines if he can and avoid cities with lots of weather if possible. Dallas doesn’t have many weather issue but Pittsburgh sometimes does of course. Sometimes companies have ‘preferred airlines’ where they have arrangements and so force the employees onto those airlines. It’s possible his company has one of those with American - he can check.</p>
<p>I’m always dubious of flying on an airline that’s bankrupt and cutting corners, has unhappy employees, etc. I’d much rather fly on an airline with happy employees and enough money to properly take care of everything even if it costs me an extra few dollars.</p>
<p>Living in Dallas, we always fly American. We have never even once had a flight canceled. This makes me a little nervous as we anticipate flying out to North Carolina soon for graduation.</p>
<p>It hasn’t been the American Eagle flights that have been cancelled. It’s the American flights. The American Eagle has been delayed but there were thunderstorms in the area yesterday. </p>
<p>It sounds like avoid American and avoid O Hare. He is going to try and do that. I’m afraid he’s not going to want to visit us again as this weekend was a nightmare. He was going to come to his sister’s graduation but things came up and because flying has been so stressful, he decided not to.</p>
<p>If it was truly a weather related cancellation, and I expect it was - I don’t think they’d lie about it, then it would have affected more airlines than American so simply switching airlines doesn’t solve that. Sometimes some weather conditions (especially low visibility - I’ve been stuck at O-Hare overnight before due to that) affect landings but not take-offs so just because there was some flight activity at the time it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a weather issue. Also, some weather conditions can affect things for a half hour or an hour, not necessarily all day, so unless one has all the details one can’t assume no weather issues just because sometime that day there was flight activity. In addition it’s sometimes a weather issue in a completely different area that can cause a cancellation - i.e. maybe the connecting flight for him was coming into O-Hare from Seattle and Seattle had the weather issues so the plane didn’t arrive in time so they cancelled the flight from O-Hare to Pitt. It may not have even been the airline’s decision on the weather issue but rather, the airport/air traffic control.</p>
<p>There’s no way to avoid some of the weather issues and I prefer them to err on the side of caution when I’m flying.</p>
<p>The real difference in the airlines is how they handle it once something’s cancelled - how much effort they put into re-routing, how many alternatives they have available to them with aircraft, whether they’re willing to re-route onto a competitor’s airline, etc.</p>
<p>One problem these days is the flights are quite full, so there’s no extra seats if one flight get cancelled you can’t run to another gate. When the economy turned down, airlines slashed the number of flights, plus the mergers have cut capacity. With the economy picking up, they are slow to increase capacity, as it’s more profitable to fly 1 full plane and 2 at 50%. </p>
<p>Another way to avoid delays is to not book the last flight of the day. Some airports you want to take the first flight of the day, when the delays have not snowballed.</p>