Delta and flight cancellations - data point

Many posters here worry about flight cancellations. While cancellations are a fact of life in the airline industry, an interesting data point was just published. According to the AJC, Delta just had their 200th day in 2016 without a mainline cancellation. Now, that means that there were 115 days with a cancelled flight, but it's still a pretty impressive number. Plus there are still flight delays, misconnects and more to mitigate against.

Just thought some might find that data point interesting.

Story can be found at THIS LINK.

And for a passenger-eye look at one airline's flight problems, there is this YouTube video:

Great video.

Fortunately I've never experienced anything that bad.

I have had issues and if I may,,,,, those poor reps working behind the counter are not the ones at fault. They're just trying to earn an honest living and feed their families just like you. You can scream and cuss,,,, or you can be nice, be professional, and throw some sweetness around.

Don't wait around for a voucher for a hotel somewhere. Just get out your phone and get a room at the hotel of your choice. Let everyone else stand in line and get upset.

The worst delay situation I can remember happened to me years ago on a business trip in Atlanta. It occurred as the Democratic National Convention was also going on in the city, so travel resources were already strained to the max.

I boarded a plane scheduled to depart ATL around 6pm non-stop to EWR, so I expected to be home in just a couple of hours. We boarded around 5:15pm as storm clouds gathered, and after pushing away from the gate promptly got in line as the airport basically shut down for severe thunderstorms surrounding the area. 90 minutes later, still on the tarmac, engines shut down...we were told there was a ground hold for all flights headed to the northeast because of severe weather.

At the four hour mark, one woman was incensed. She wanted to get off...but the crew explained that (a) there were no gates for us to move to at the time and (b) if we 'got out of line' we would lose our takeoff slot and be delayed even further. (This happened well before the whole 'passenger bill of rights' thing.)

We ended up finally taking off around midnight...spent just over 6 hours on the ground, in the plane. Waiting. Thankfully it was not a full flight and we were on a widebody (3-5-3 configuration). I was able to have a whole middle row where I put all the armrests up and took a nap in between reading the ENTIRE book I had just bought in the terminal. Flight attendants served us drinks, food, did whatever they could to make us comfortable.

I finally walked through the door of my house around 3:30am. I realized that had I gotten into a car and started driving home at the moment I left the hotel to get to the airport, I'd have probably made it home a little sooner.

Brought back the nightmare of our worst delay. Ancient history.... during the Blizzard of 1999, we spent three nights in Greenville North Carolina trying to get back to DTW (the old Northwest Airlines). We were on the first flight cancelled and it took them almost three full days to work us back onto a flight. The evening before we finally got assigned a flight, a gate agent took pity on us..."you're still here???" and comped us a room and a meal. It was very nice of her. We had gotten our own room the previous two nights, so at least we weren't living in the airport all that time.

My worst: A surprise vacation to Hawaii (my now-ex did a great job of getting the OK from my boss, buying tickets and hotel, packing stuff, and all without me knowing). Flight on HA via a local company that ran scheduled "charter" flights and this was their first one to go to HNL (this company later became a real scheduled airline and later absorbed by WN). Got to airport. Plane was still sitting in Anchorage - it was when one of the volcanoes erupted up there - could not fly due to the ash. So, there was one plane "available" - it was completing it's "C" checks in Los Angeles and would be flown to our airport asap. Fast forward about 5 hours. Plane arrives, we board. We sit. turns out the ground crew for the company used the wrong generator to restart the plane and blew it -it was used to small 2-engine jets, not an L-1011. Now, the crew had to negotiate with Delta to borrow a generator with enough juice to start a wide body. About an hour later, we depart, HNL bound. About an hour later, we land in SFO (a scheduled fuel stop). Captain gets on the PA: "ever have one of those days? Our First Officer has become ill and we need to replace him. We have put in a request for a new First Officer - there are none available here at this time. One is coming in for us." Sigh. Doors open and we are allowed to deplane if we want. A few more hours later the FO arrives and we are off to HNL...

My worst: So, there was one plane "available" - it was completing it's "C" checks in Los Angeles and would be flown to our airport asap. Fast forward about 5 hours. Plane arrives, we board. We sit. turns out the ground crew for the company used the wrong generator to restart the plane and blew it -it was used to small 2-engine jets, not an L-1011. Now, the crew had to negotiate with Delta to borrow a generator with enough juice to start a wide body. About an hour later, we depart, HNL bound. About an hour later, we land in SFO (a scheduled fuel stop). Captain gets on the PA: "ever have one of those days? Our First Officer has become ill and we need to replace him. We have put in a request for a new First Officer - there are none available here at this time. One is coming in for us." Sigh. Doors open and we are allowed to deplane if we want. A few more hours later the FO arrives and we are off to HNL...

Not sure why an L-1011: wouldn't have an APU to start the engines and would have a scheduled fuel stop from ANC-HNL when they could fly 6000 miles without fueling.

How would DL count a 24-hour delay?

It comes to mind because I had one of those a couple of weeks back. We pushed back on time and taxied out towards the runway. Stopping in the queue and being sequenced wasn't unusual, but it was unusual to be overtaken by so many other aircraft. Eventually, the crew announced that it was a technical problem that couldn't be fixed without returning to the stand. And to cut a long story short, it couldn't be fixed before we ran out of time in every sense after being on board for about four hours, so we were going to try again the following evening.

It all went pretty flawlessly the second time, at least once we'd got onto the aircraft. (There had been some glitches before then because for some reason we hadn't been re-numbered and so there were two flights with the same flight number departing to the same destination within a couple of hours of each other.) Would that have counted as a cancellation for DL?

Got to airport. Plane was still sitting in Anchorage... could not fly due to the ash. So, there was one plane "available" - it was completing it's "C" checks in Los Angeles and would be flown to our airport asap. Fast forward about 5 hours. Plane arrives, we board. We sit. turns out the ground crew for the company used the wrong generator...Now, the crew had to negotiate with Delta to borrow a generator... About an hour later, we land in SFO (a scheduled fuel stop). Captain gets on the PA: "ever have one of those days? Our First Officer has become ill and we need to replace him.... One is coming in for us." Sigh. Doors open and we are allowed to deplane if we want. A few more hours later the FO arrives and we are off to HNL...

I'm surprised after all that the original crew didn't time out and cause another delay, LOL

I'm surprised after all that the original crew didn't time out and cause another delay, LOL

Well, that could be the actual reason we had to stop in SFO... We were told we'd be picking up fuel at first *before the "sick" crew*. The distance from SLC to HNL is greater than from ANC to HNL or ANC to SLC. And, the route flies directly over SFO, not north. Also, they may have decided that, due to altitude of SLC, they would "top off" in SFO to make up for fuel burned out of SLC by a fully-loaded plane.

As for the APU/fuel thing: All I know is what we were told and I did see another little truck thing pull up to the plane. The ground crew for the charter company usually only dealt with old-school Sierra Pacific 737-200s and some prop planes (convairs??) , so maybe what they had didn't have enough juice for a L-1011. This was the first time the company used the L-1011 for a flight...