Travel right now: FAIR WARNING!

pb4uski said:
Family members have taken two trips this week with no travel troubles other than typical delays. DM and DSister traveled from AUS to BTV via ORD on American on Tuesday and arrived on-time. DS traveled from BTV to AUS via JFK on Delta yesterday and all was on-time.

So there is hope but they all traveled prior to the busiest travel days for the holiday weekend... by design. Or they just got lucky.
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Update: 3 more family trips domestically... DW yesterday to Texas and DS yesterday from Texas. DS flight was cancelled and rescheduled today and the flights today ran smoothly.

So of 5 trips only one was cancelled and the rest were either on time or minor delays. Not bad.
 
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I’ve been avoiding this thread until our return from Germany. Too darn stressful!

I booked nonstop flights both ways, and both went off without any problems, and luggage was waiting for us as well. Unofficial opinions at the airport was that short haul flights were more likely to be disrupted than long haul flights such as we were on.

Both planes did end up waiting about 15 minutes longer than scheduled to await late transferring passengers, so that would certainly indicate ongoing disruption along the flight chain.

I don’t think we’ll be flying again any time soon as even though both of our flights went off OK, the current situation is simply too stressful to make traveling by plane much fun. We will suck it up again to visit our family (Granddaughters!) again next year., but otherwise will stick to car trips and RVing till things settle back down.
 
ElizabethT said:
Both planes did end up waiting about 15 minutes longer than scheduled to await late transferring passengers, so that would certainly indicate ongoing disruption along the flight chain.
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I've had that happen- but NEVER when I was the one who was the late-transferring passenger!:D
 
I have several friends traveling to Europe on separate trips. So far all have made it without major hitches. Maybe things are improving?
 
youbet said:
The only minor issue was picking DW up at the American terminal (#3). She called and told me what door she was standing outside of and I left the temporary parking lot and went there. Lotsa traffic. I made it to the curb and saw her maybe 70 ft ahead of me. A large (should be playing on Da Bears offensive line) and very mean looking gal carrying a baton screamed at me that there was no standing/waiting allowed while she slapped her baton against the palm of her hand. I pointed at my DW and screamed back (it was very noisy) and said "she's right there." I then got cussed out including religious-based profanity and some expressions I hadn't heard since working nights in an inner city factory. DW finally looked up and saw me and walked over.

I've picked up people from OHare dozens of times and was following the usual procedure. I know they have to keep you moving. There's no room for cars to park for 5 - 10 mins waiting for their party to arrive. I got there after DW informed me she was standing there waiting. I just needed to get her attention since she didn't see me pull up in all the noise and crowds. Sheeesh..........

Perhaps the gorilla-gal with the baton and loud, foul mouth was just having a bad day?
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They've been pretty brutal as long as I can remember. But profanity is a new level of brutal.

My mom and dad hated picking us up at O'Hare. One time dad got confused and stopped at Vestibule 3a looking for us instead of 3d (or something like that) and got the baton-tap on the driver's window which really made him unhappy.

Sounds like they've ratcheted up what was already a very impersonal process. It really is out of character for Chicago, too. A Midwest friendly city that is trying to outdo New York in this one instance. Some "welcome" to Chicago that is.
 
Closet_Gamer said:
We're seeing that while its easy to pull 10k trained people out of an infrastructure with the stroke of a pen, it is much harder to put them back in. Toss in the great resignation and other factors, and its a really tough situation.
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Add demographics to the mix. They got rid of the expensive old people and there aren't enough young 'uns. Typical spreadsheet management.

I'll add this: my friends who worked in the industry loved the travel perk. With this chaos, the travel perk for airline workers is significantly de-valued. It's hard to use a perk that is hard to obtain (free stand-by travel).
 
JoeWras said:
I'll add this: my friends who worked in the industry loved the travel perk. With this chaos, the travel perk for airline workers is significantly de-valued. It's hard to use a perk that is hard to obtain (free stand-by travel).
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ClosetGamer made a lot of thoughtful points about why it will take a long time for the airlines to reach some sort of equilibrium. I've been wondering, though, about voluntary resignations for reasons such as the one you cite. The people NOT let go by the airlines were left with a bigger workload, more chaos, disgruntled customers, concerns for their personal safety (especially during the times we didn't know much about how COVID was spread and before the widespread availability of vaccines) and worries that the axe would fall on them next. And of course there were the school boards saying, "School will be at your place now so please make sure a responsible adult is on the premises".

You can see why many would have left without being fired.

I still believe that the airlines could have monitored the numbers for 2-3 months ahead more closely and started offering voluntary cancellations (with refunds, not credits) or rebooking, instead of making knee-jerk reactions at the last minute.
 
athena53 said:
I still believe that the airlines could have monitored the numbers for 2-3 months ahead more closely and started offering voluntary cancellations (with refunds, not credits) or rebooking, instead of making knee-jerk reactions at the last minute.
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Absolutely!
 
Here's an interesting (well, interesting to me anyway), data viz tool developed by the FlightAware team: https://public.tableau.com/app/prof...ationDelayUpdate/USAirlineCancellationsDelays

I filtered down to U.S. based carriers only.

Time PeriodCancellationsDelaysAverage Delay Length
June 20191.9%19.9%54 mins
June 20222.7%22.7%52 mins
July 1-7 20191.7%16.8%56 mins
July 1-7 20221.5%19.3%49 mins

It sucks if your flight is one of the ones that's cancelled, but at least for domestic travel, you really have a darn good chance of getting to your destination within an hour of the scheduled time.
 
gayl said:
Made it!! And already unpacked
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The flight back was uneventful as well. But going 2 days early on my transatlantic cruise. I heard LHR is having 'issues' to put it mildly

Going major hub (SFO) to major hub (LHR). I have insurance if flight back from EWR is delayed
 
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gayl said:
The flight back was uneventful as well. But going 2 days early on my transatlantic cruise. I heard LHR is having 'issues' to put it mildly

Going major hub (SFO) to major hub (LHR). I have insurance if flight back from EWR is delayed
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So two extra nights at a hotel?

Unfortunately, the latest you can cancel a hotel is 24 hours before check in and by that time, if you have a flight cancelation, it might be too late to get a refund.
 
Scuba said:
I have several friends traveling to Europe on separate trips. So far all have made it without major hitches. Maybe things are improving?
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I know a number of people who have flown domestically and internationally in the past two months. Most had no significant problems. The news media always reports on the sinking ship, and ignores all those that made it safely to the dock.

But, if the scary stories are enough to keep some people home, all the better for me. Less crowds, less delay, and less chance of something going seriously wrong during my trip.

Personally, I am far more concerned with getting sick with Covid or any other medical problem than a cancelled flight.
 
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explanade said:
So two extra nights at a hotel?



Unfortunately, the latest you can cancel a hotel is 24 hours before check in and by that time, if you have a flight cancelation, it might be too late to get a refund.
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Not exactly. The latest I can cancel without a charge is 2pm day of arrival. If i cancel after 2pm then I'm charged for the 1st night. In that I'm supposed to land at noon, I'm covered.
 
I think it’s reasonable to assume you’ll be exposed to covid if you travel. There are minimal/no precautions and lots of large crowds, packed trains/public transport, etc.

Flight delays have been common, usually by an hour or so, by most people I know that have been traveling. I’m intentionally sticking to train travel for my current trip to avoid the hassle. Getting an earlier flight seems to help, otherwise give yourself lots of time. Or wait until summer is over and demand goes down.
 
tulak said:
I think it’s reasonable to assume you’ll be exposed to covid if you travel. There are minimal/no precautions and lots of large crowds, packed trains/public transport, etc.

Flight delays have been common, usually by an hour or so, by most people I know that have been traveling. I’m intentionally sticking to train travel for my current trip to avoid the hassle. Getting an earlier flight seems to help, otherwise give yourself lots of time. Or wait until summer is over and demand goes down.
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End of summer is what I'm counting on. When we got our reservations, it was before the recent issues. But by luck(?) we don't fly home until October. (Hoping for an extended fall - at least not an early winter.) YMMV
 
In the past year I have been to 4 parties that had around 50 people each time and never got Covid. I was wondering if I was immune. Of course not as I get it on vacation:)).
 
gayl said:
Not exactly. The latest I can cancel without a charge is 2pm day of arrival. If i cancel after 2pm then I'm charged for the 1st night. In that I'm supposed to land at noon, I'm covered.
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That's pretty generous compared to what I'm seeing, which are mostly family-run hotels in Italy, particularly smaller towns.
 
Chuckanut said:
I know a number of people who have flown domestically and internationally in the past two months. Most had no significant problems. The news media always reports on the sinking ship, and ignores all those that made it safely to the dock.

But, if the scary stories are enough to keep some people home, all the better for me. Less crowds, less delay, and less chance of something going seriously wrong during my trip.

Personally, I am far more concerned with getting sick with Covid or any other medical problem than a cancelled flight.
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Well, for many people including myself it's the idea of getting hit with the double whammy that leads to thoughts of I'll just stay put for now..



I think some press is coming from lack of solutions on the airlines involved. Say you completely cancel a full plane. The next 3 days of those flights are full as well. Zero wiggle room and the original cancelled passengers perhaps getting caught in a multi day travel cluster. Those stories make headlines. We got caught in a problem like that 20 years ago. The delay was so severe the airline booked us on a different airline, the second airline flight was overbooked and resulted in denied boarding, it took off so late (due to the denied boarding situation) we missed our connecting flight to my niece's wedding. this took place over 2 days and was a complete nightmare. This experience alone taught me if the travel situation looks bad, just don't!!!
 
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ndongobudget said:
I do agree with you. Traveling via airlines in times of COVID-19 pandemics was a nightmare.
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I tried to travel from the US to Europe with all my family when the lockdown just started, and we got 4 flights canceled, so we ended up closing our hotel booking. After this situation, I started to search for some private jet company that would get us to the US and would be able to pick us back from Europe when we needed to get back. Hopefully, I had enough money to afford it. By using the private jet charter cost estimator service, I managed to get the estimated price that was not that high for 8 people. I'm glad that this COVID-19 pandemic ended.
 
Friends just got back from Europe (Germany and Czechia). They came back with Covid. They spent so much energy these last 2 years avoiding it. They felt on the trip it was unavoidable. They said tourists were hacking everywhere. Part of their trip was a river cruise, and they said one other group clearly had it judging by the coughing but powered through because -- well, you know, trip of a lifetime.
 
We returned 20 days ago from five weeks in Portugal. Independent travel.

We were fortunate. Neither of us contracted covid.

We had to have a negative antigen test 24hrs prior to boarding the plane. Plus proof of vaccination.

Masks were strictly enforced on flights, domestic and international, buses, and trains. Everyone was wearing masks in airports, etc.

We did not notice an abnormal amount of coughing or people flouting the regs.

While we were in Portugal the news reports claimed that Portugal was experiencing a significant increase in covid cases.
 
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