air line cancel flights

[village dreamer]

how can an air line cancel a flights just hours befor take off ?? yes pilots get sick, airplanes break down , but not hundreds of flights. why do they book so many flights if they cant fly all the flights. i feel sorry if you have to fly now days.

[billethkid]

It is impressive how this industry has grown over the years, generating continuous advancement of so many related technologies.....growing airports.....adding fleets of various aircraft....reliable transportation.

And now all of a sudden the industry has become crippled...unable to conduct it's primary business of transportation....EFFECTIVELY.

An excellent bad example of America losing it's leadership edge in the world. And we are being trained to accept mediocrity and lack of reliability.

I am glad I came through life when I did......when being number one was a priority!! (I am tempted to say when we were great but do not want to provide the cannon's fodder :duck: )

[Michael G.]

how can an air line cancel a flights just hours befor take off ?? yes pilots get sick, airplanes break down , but not hundreds of flights. why do they book so many flights if they cant fly all the flights. i feel sorry if you have to fly now days.

A friend had a late flight out of Orlando for business and was cancelled until morning.
They said it was a malfunction on the plane.

He took a cab to a motel and he told the cab driver what happen.

The cab driver laugh and said many times pilots show up drunk or on drugs and they tell people there's trouble with the plan. :plane:

What a world we live in.

[Stu from NYC]

For many years one could not trust the excuse the airline gave. They operate on a shoestring so if one thing goes wrong they are unable to recover and just cancel flights.

Unfortunately in most cases they are able to get away with shoddy service.

[Calisport]

Lack of ground crew can also be a factor.

[asianthree]

Our family of 6 flew last week arrived different areas, to TV 5 flights arrived early, both ways. The sixth flight to Minnesota was moved up 2 hours, and was 15 minutes late. Three fly weekly, find the flights are full, with some slight overbooked seats. Airports have many people waiting for flights that were canceled. Our kids are all still using vouchers from canceled flight during the pandemic.

[biker1]

Doubtful. There are FAA limits on how long a crew can work and flights can be cancelled if they don't have a replacement crew. There are lots of reasons that flights don't go. I have flown about 2 million miles and have pretty much seen it all.

A friend had a late flight out of Orlando for business and was cancelled until morning.
They said it was a malfunction on the plane.

He took a cab to a motel and he told the cab driver what happen.

The cab driver laugh and said many times pilots show up drunk or on drugs and they tell people there's trouble with the plan. :plane:

What a world we live in.

[Keefelane66]

Airlines gave out EARLY RETIREMENT incentives and extensive layoffs during Pandemic. Getting restarted to full capacity isn’t like hiring a clerk for a 7-11.

[MartinSE]

Sounds to me like a business opportunity - safe, reliable airline.

One of the reasons, I think America has fallen out of first place in so many ways is people would rather see problems and complain, then see opportunities and improve.

[biker1]

Safety is not an issue. Airlines are the safest way to travel. Regarding reliability, it generally ranges from about 75-90% on-time arrivals (arriving within 15 mins of scheduled arrival time). The list of things that can cause delays is very long and many have nothing to do with the individual airline. The cancellations get attention on the news. Notice that they never talk about all the flights that arrive on time.

Sounds to me like a business opportunity - safe, reliable airline.

One of the reasons, I think America has fallen out of first place in so many ways is people would rather see problems and complain, then see opportunities and improve.

[Babubhat]

There are no backup planes or personnel. One delay causes a chain reaction. The new reality

[Stu from NYC]

Safety is not an issue. Airlines are the safest way to travel. Regarding reliability, it generally ranges from about 75-90% on-time arrivals (arriving within 15 mins of scheduled arrival time). The list of things that can cause delays is very long and many have nothing to do with the individual airline. The cancellations get attention on the news. Notice that they never talk about all the flights that arrive on time.

Very true but the on time rate is not really accurate. Some years ago they added some time to the schedule in order to help the on time rate look better.

Once upon a time when we flew to the port to take a cruise we would be ok with flying in same day as cruise. Now always get there a day ahead of time.

[kkingston57]

A friend had a late flight out of Orlando for business and was cancelled until morning.
They said it was a malfunction on the plane.

He took a cab to a motel and he told the cab driver what happen.

The cab driver laugh and said many times pilots show up drunk or on drugs and they tell people there's trouble with the plan. :plane:

What a world we live in.

Do you believe the cab driver?

We travel out of MCO 5-6 times a year and park our car at a local hotel which provides van service to the airport. Van almost always has at least one pilot on it. Bet these pilots hardly ever, if ever, use a cab.

[biker1]

Yes, it is accurate - it is tracked. However, yes, the flight times are padded a bit, presumably to improve the on-time rate. However, it doesn't really matter as you need to allow for layover time for connections. Padding the flight times only helps. I want to know when the flight is likely to arrive - how long they say the flight is doesn't matter to me. I generally allow a couple of hours, more in the summer. We have occasionally, in the past, traveled the day of departure when we were renting sailboats or going on a cruise. I agree that traveling the day before is now prudent, always.

Very true but the on time rate is not really accurate. Some years ago they added some time to the schedule in order to help the on time rate look better.

Once upon a time when we flew to the port to take a cruise we would be ok with flying in same day as cruise. Now always get there a day ahead of time.

[RedChariot]

how can an air line cancel a flights just hours befor take off ?? yes pilots get sick, airplanes break down , but not hundreds of flights. why do they book so many flights if they cant fly all the flights. i feel sorry if you have to fly now days.

Hours before you ask???? Are you kidding me! 3 days before Last Thanksgiving after waiting in the TSA line for an hour and a half, making it to the gate, and sitting down, Spirit Airlines cancelled our flight minutes before boarding!!! No seats available until Thanksgiving evening. I don't think I will ever fly out of Orlando again just before Thanksgiving or Christmas again. That day was a nightmare. Thank goodness Creative Concierge was able to come back and get us.

[MartinSE]

Airlines gave out EARLY RETIREMENT incentives and extensive layoffs during Pandemic. Getting restarted to full capacity isn’t like hiring a clerk for a 7-11.

Very astute observation. It is certainly something a company does - laying off in slow times and then scrambling to recover.

When I worked for APS (Arizona Power) they had just gone through a massive early retirement buyout program to get rid of a bunch of old high paid employees before they qualified for retirement. Sounded like a great short term idea. Then they had a couple substation outages, and issues and found out "tribal knowledge" had been lost and the documentation was not current or accurate. So, they scramble to hire some of the old employees back as contractors to "get them over the issues".

Exactly the same scenario occurred decades earlier when I was working as a contractor for CSX (east coast railway company). They had landed off and offered early retirement to a lot of employees. Then Y2X happened. Turned out Railroads were one of the seriously affected with all their ancient COBOL code. They too had to try to hire back gone employees. They had a lot of old code to review and fix. I was on staff for 2 or 3 years working on that project.

Point is, companies today focus on short term profits (for the most part) and when an infrastructure issue occurs they often find themselves hurting and no easy way to recover.

Used to be ("good old days - ahem") when a company had a virtual monopoly or a significant part of producing critical products, they were held accountable. Today, we bail them out if their short-term profits out weight public good.

Airlines, automotive, Aircraft, Space Program, Baby formula, and on and on. over and over. It seems no one is held accountable for anything anymore.

[Michael G.]

Safety is not an issue. Airlines are the safest way to travel.

And I hope it stays that way.

[tophcfa]

Flying sucks since the pandemic. Pre-Covid we could almost always book a non-stop round trip flight between BDL and MCO with either Southwest or JetBlue for under $300. There were typically at least 3 non-stops every day available from both airlines and on short notice you could almost always find an even better bargain with several open seats. Now, only one very expensive non- stop flight per day is available, it’s typically full, and it is scheduled to depart either very early or very late in the day. Delays and cancellations are extremely common, and the ease of rebooking a canceled flight in a short time frame are a thing of the past. Several private drivers will no longer book pick-ups after 5:00 PM because they are sick of waiting until the wee hours of the night for delayed flights. The last time I flew to MCO via JetBlue my scheduled landing of 6:00 PM finally arrived at the gate at 2:20 AM and I was dropped off at our home at about 4:10 in the morning. We were told the flight was delayed because of a mechanical issue and there was only one mechanic available who was working on other planes before he could get to ours. My driver had to go get a coffee and make his morning pickup without any sleep and said he this was becoming a common occurrence and would never again book a pickup after 5:00.

Here is hoping things return to pre-Covid, but I’m not holding my breath. Looks like the days of us being able to fly several times per year to our Villages home for a couple of weeks stay are a thing of the past.

[charlieo1126@gmail.com]

A friend had a late flight out of Orlando for business and was cancelled until morning.
They said it was a malfunction on the plane.

He took a cab to a motel and he told the cab driver what happen.

The cab driver laugh and said many times pilots show up drunk or on drugs and they tell people there's trouble with the plan. :plane:

What a world we live in.oh please give me a break, yes there are delays , but we have the best professionals and crews and the best safety records in the world , I can’t believe that you woul pass on such an insulting rumor started maybe by a cab driver

[Babubhat]

Timing out flight crews for just sitting around during delays needs to be fixed.

[MartinSE]

oh please give me a break, yes there are delays , but we have the best professionals and crews and the best safety records in the world , I can’t believe that you woul pass on such an insulting rumor started maybe by a cab driver

Uh, sorry, nope.

"In short, Air France and American Airlines have been involved in the most plane crashes worldwide with 11 each, though popular US carriers, including United and Southwest have also had their fair share of accidents.

When it comes to fatalities, American Airlines has one of the worst records with 858 fatalities, along with China Airlines at 760 fatalities, and Malaysia Airlines at 537 fatalities, though this metric doesn’t always tell the full story."

US has the highest accidents rate in the world, closely followed by Russia. Air New Zealand is the safest airline in the world.

Used to be, but not any more. Another bit of American Exceptionalism that has fallen by the wayside. Sadly... Think how great we could be if we worked together to improve our country, instead of constant in-fighting.

[charlieo1126@gmail.com]

Last fatal commercial airlines crash was 10 years ago if you want to consider all types of commercial.planes it comes out this year to 1.01 per million flights and I wasn’t posting about that I thought the posting that the pilots were all drunk or on drugs insulting but I don’t want to spend 4 days posting a couple of hundred messages with you so I’ll just say whatever you say is ok I won’t know because it’s not worth it

[ThirdOfFive]

Hours before you ask???? Are you kidding me! 3 days before Last Thanksgiving after waiting in the TSA line for an hour and a half, making it to the gate, and sitting down, Spirit Airlines cancelled our flight minutes before boarding!!! No seats available until Thanksgiving evening. I don't think I will ever fly out of Orlando again just before Thanksgiving or Christmas again. That day was a nightmare. Thank goodness Creative Concierge was able to come back and get us.
Spirit is notorious for such things. My son was flying Spirit to (I believe) Miami. His flight was cancelled only a couple of hours before boarding because of "weather" (none of the other airlines flying to the same destination were cancelling flights). Rumor is that this happens at times if the flight is significantly less than sold out.

[New Englander]

A friend had a late flight out of Orlando for business and was cancelled until morning.
They said it was a malfunction on the plane.

He took a cab to a motel and he told the cab driver what happen.

The cab driver laugh and said many times pilots show up drunk or on drugs and they tell people there's trouble with the plan. :plane:

What a world we live in.

Cab drivers are very knowledgeable about the airlines?

[Stu from NYC]

Cab drivers are very knowledgeable about the airlines?

My dad was a taxi driver for many years in NYC passengers told him lots of interesting stuff that we otherwise might not have known about.

[golfing eagles]

Flying sucks since the pandemic. Pre-Covid we could almost always book a non-stop round trip flight between BDL and MCO with either Southwest or JetBlue for under $300. There were typically at least 3 non-stops every day available from both airlines and on short notice you could almost always find an even better bargain with several open seats. Now, only one very expensive non- stop flight per day is available, it’s typically full, and it is scheduled to depart either very early or very late in the day. Delays and cancellations are extremely common, and the ease of rebooking a canceled flight in a short time frame are a thing of the past. Several private drivers will no longer book pick-ups after 5:00 PM because they are sick of waiting until the wee hours of the night for delayed flights. The last time I flew to MCO via JetBlue my scheduled landing of 6:00 PM finally arrived at the gate at 2:20 AM and I was dropped off at our home at about 4:10 in the morning. We were told the flight was delayed because of a mechanical issue and there was only one mechanic available who was working on other planes before he could get to ours. My driver had to go get a coffee and make his morning pickup without any sleep and said he this was becoming a common occurrence and would never again book a pickup after 5:00.

Here is hoping things return to pre-Covid, but I’m not holding my breath. Looks like the days of us being able to fly several times per year to our Villages home for a couple of weeks stay are a thing of the past.

Flying sucks ever since 9/11

[flyboyl39]

Uh, sorry, nope.

"In short, Air France and American Airlines have been involved in the most plane crashes worldwide with 11 each, though popular US carriers, including United and Southwest have also had their fair share of accidents.

When it comes to fatalities, American Airlines has one of the worst records with 858 fatalities, along with China Airlines at 760 fatalities, and Malaysia Airlines at 537 fatalities, though this metric doesn’t always tell the full story."

US has the highest accidents rate in the world, closely followed by Russia. Air New Zealand is the safest airline in the world.

Used to be, but not any more. Another bit of American Exceptionalism that has fallen by the wayside. Sadly... Think how great we could be if we worked together to improve our country, instead of constant in-fighting.

US airlines are not even in the top ten most dangerous. Lion Air is the most dangerous airline. Your raw data doesn’t take into consideration the number of miles and flights flown.

[tophcfa]

Flying sucks ever since 9/11

Definitely better before 9/11, but still very tolerable after 9/11 with TSA pre-check. But totally different and worse since pandemic, with no return to pre-Covid experience in sight.

[frose]

issues are with flight crews not having enough down times.. the ones that left during covid did not come back crews are overworked.. i would not want a tired pilot flying my plane i'll take a later flight

[keepsake]

I read in the last week something about the feds changing the minimum flight time in the past year or two for new pilots from like 500 hours to 1500 hours. That'll do it won't it.