<p>I’m so sorry this happened to your family. Air travel used to be wonderful. Things have changed for the worse. So many mergers and bankruptcies…it’s hard to even figure out who to fly with. We used to fly American a lot…but that is a risky one too.</p>
<p>I agree with the college exam schedule. I also wonder why ANY college has to have classes the Monday after New Years, thus requiring the flyers to travel on one of the busiest and most expensive weekends of the year. Seriously…college is expensive enough…travel is expensive enough. Have classes start a week LATER on a Wednesday!</p>
<p>My son is another Frontier casualty. He was supposed to fly (from Denver) on Thursday. Then we got hit by the blizzard and he couldn’t get a seat until tonight. At least that’s what I’m hoping. If he runs into a snag at DIA today I will be furious.</p>
<p>first off, sorry for the *** words. I didn’t know CC was so sensitive.
romaingypsyeyes: my guess would be that since tickets were already purchased on Frontier to fly another carrier would be full last minute fare. Even if one could find a seat the cost would likely be four-six times the normal fare.</p>
<p>^^They “claimed” this morning that there are no available seats on any other airline until after Christmas. I was on the phone while my son was at the counter and heard this. Son had them check Chicago, Detroit, Lansing, Flint, Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Traverse City, and Muskegon. They said no seats. He said" anywhere in Michigan, northern Indiana or Chicago metro. Woman said “no, nothing available.”</p>
<p>That’s why I only fly Southwest now and will drive up to 4 hrs. to avoid flying other airlines. Not that they can do anything about weather delays and cancellations, but they do their best to get you there, are pleasant while you’re waiting, and often have you rebooked on another available flight before you get there. </p>
<p>It is somewhat a question of near capacity flights and no spaces to rebook people, esp. during holiday season, but Southwest flights are always full with a lot of carry on bags and they don’t seem to have a problem managing things, like almost all the other airlines do. Every time I have to fly another airline, something happens and I usually swear that I will never again set foot on one of their planes again. </p>
<p>I’ve stopped flying into Reagan airport in DC. The last 4 times I did so (for a day trip), my return flight was cancelled and I either ended up having to spend the night, arrive home really late (like 2 a.m.) or travel 3 times as far to get to my original destination. I now fly only Southwest to BWI and drive where I need to go. SW now flies to Dulles, too, but it’s not a non-stop flight for me, so BWI is easier.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, in your position I’d feel sad, frustrated and upset also. Respectfully, though, I don’t think it’s fair to keep on at the airlines’ employees unless you actually have evidence. It doesn’t appear yet that there is any evidence that the employees caused these cancellations. </p>
<p>Many times when there is a plane but no crew, it means that the airline doesn’t have enough flight employees available to fly without exceeding the legal hours that crew is permitted to fly without rest. This happens with the best airlines, never mind one that has already filed for bankruptcy, when hiring adequate numbers of crew is not management’s priorty.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem right especially with an airline that has already filed for bankruptcy, to be so quick to blame the employees without facts to back that up. There may be lots of reasons for delays, including just possibly, the weather.</p>
<p>I hope your son makes it home somehow. My D can’t make it home either, so I do empathize with your feelings.</p>
<p>Oh, that is a bummer, momofthree! We are getting our D home tonight. Paid extra to do it, and we switched to another airline (US Airways instead of Southwest), but at least we were able to get her on a flight. We’ll use our Southwest credit on a future flight. I do like that about Southwest . . . She was upset at first that her flight was cancelled, but it is working out – she had to hang in Boston for a couple of days, but that’s not so bad, and at least she knew before she went to the airport. I am seriously going to try flying with her out of Manchester, NH (instead of Boston) on a future trip, just so she is familiar with that option on Southwest. This time around, she wasn’t ready to try that, but I think it is probably easier than she realizes. She would have made it out of Boston earlier too, if one of her finals hadn’t been scheduled for the 20th. The closer it gets to Christmas, the less options one has when things go awry due to weather, or ??? </p>
<p>Son won’t make it home. Will be alone in campus apartment. I feel sorry for the ticket counter people as did my son…he handled everything extremely well and as best as he could and my son says the gate lady last night was really upset and didn’t know what was happening. The line at the ticket counter was over 400 deep last night and Son says at least 200 this morning and that was just DIA. Sorry, but I will dig for this story… it’s far, far too suspicious and systemic and only within the Frontier system.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry about this–I know how devastated I was when S didn’t come home once for Thanksgiving because of a work commitment on Friday. The world seemed all out of joint. </p>
<p>This is why my kids weren’t allowed to apply to colleges that required airline flights–it’s just too hard and too risky. Really something to think about when making up that list of schools. My kids were close enough to drive and take trains, and didn’t have to spend big chunks of time getting to airports and hanging around in them. It saved us money, too, and allowed them to come home on short notice for more frivolous reasons (and for a funeral in one case) without a big bill.</p>
<p>I’ve been flying kids back and forth to college from DIA at Christmas for 7 years now. But always on United. Two of the years there was a blizzard and delays but United figured out how to get them home even sending them down to Texas and then back up, but I’ve never experienced anything like what happened yesterday and today.</p>
<p>Yeah, but the airline business has changed a lot in seven years, often not to passengers’ benefit. I’m really not sure United would have been able to do any better by your son this Christmas.</p>
<p>Pilot friend just called me after he landed in San Antonio and started checking into loads and told me there was possibly a seat through Chicago on Christmas day on United but other than that he could find no empty seats. He’s calling me back in 10 minutes. I tend to think that the “no seats” thing might actually be true. I don’t know what the system can bear in re-routeable Frontier passengers. Denver people they were not rebooking…just cancelling and refunding. There were definitely seats last night when this all started around 5 PM at DIA with Frontier, but they were rebooking, at that time, for today on their airlines.</p>
<p>I am so sorry momofthreeboys. It is so disappointing. Have you thought of moving Christmas? We have a fine tradition in our family of having a holiday or birthday whenever we can manage since we have a number of service industry folks in the family. Family works in restaurants, hospitals, and we have an airline pilot. We once moved Christmas to take the family to son instead of bringing son home since he had to work at Disney for Christmas. My sister is having Christmas on Friday this year since that is when her pilot husband and Air Force son-in-law can be there. It’s a running joke to figure out when a holiday is going to be :)</p>
<p>No, the holiday train has left the proverbial tracks. It’s over. No seats until after Christmas…not only my pilot friend in the previous post but just confirmed by h with our neighbor who is a United pilot. We have such a small family (here in US) that it just feels like it is bigger than it is. We saw son 2 this summer and he said perhaps he’ll come home for spring break this year. Son 2 will be OK. We’ll ship his packages after Christmas and it will be a memorable holiday. I still can’t forget all the military people who only had 48 hours leave and didn’t make it to their destination or people who lost their loved ones this month…that is far more tragic and sad than my situation and I need to stop reading the tweets and posts from all the disappointed and upset Frontier customers who will miss Christmas with their families because it’s just making me more angry and more determined to get to the bottom of it all. Time to bake…my great escape.</p>
<p>There is a flight from DEN to DTW on Christmas Day with seats available on Spirit. At least you’d know he had a seat on a flight, even if he’s really late that night. There are also flights on Southwest for tomorrow. I would call Frontier and demand a cash refund and get him on one of those flights.</p>
<p>There’s also a Southwest flight at 6:45 pm TONIGHT from DEN to DTW.</p>
<p>I am so bummed for you. Did you check out Delta, via a connection? I have a bunch of Delta miles I could use for him, if there is availability.I just feel there has to be a way home, somehow.</p>