What to Do If Your Flight is Cancelled
Flight cancellations upend travel plans for millions of Americans each year, with tons of flight disruptions caused by staffing shortages and winter weather. This post covers how to avoid being impacted, what to do to improve your chances of a successful rebooking when your flight is canceled, and how to minimize headaches. (Updated December 26, 2022.)
According to flight-tracking platform FlightAware, over 17,000 flights throughout the United States have been cancelled thus far during the Christmas travel week. This is mainly due to severe winter weather across much of the United States, which brought snow, ice, high winds and bitter cold around the country, grounding flights from coast to coast.
While winter storms have hit airlines hard over the holiday travel period, that hasn’t been the only issue. Unexpected fog on the West Coast and staffing shortages, in addition to the winter weather, had a ripple effect on flights around the country. From Wednesday through Christmas Eve, approximately one-quarter of Southwest’s flights were canceled and two-thirds were delayed, making it one of the most negatively impacted airlines.
On Monday (December 26, 2022), more than 1,700 flights were canceled and 2,200 more were delayed, down from nearly 3,200 canceled flights and 7,700 delayed U.S. flights on Christmas. Every airline has been impacted–Delta, American, United, JetBlue, Alaska, and Southwest all reported significantly more cancellations than normal. Meanwhile, it was just an ordinary week for Spirit and Frontier, which aimed to maintain their customary 50% delay or cancellation rate.
Joking aside, it hasn’t helped that the worst of the weather and cancellations came on some of the busiest travel days of the year; this was compounded by carriers planning lighter schedules for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That has made it more difficult for the airlines to rebook travelers on other flights, as there wasn’t much spare bandwidth or empty seats–many flights over the weekend and through this coming week leading up to New Year’s Eve are already fully booked.
With this in mind, here’s our advice for minimizing the impact of delays and cancellations–and improving your odds of a speedy recovery…
We have flown numerous times in the last several months–and have had several flights cancelled during that time. In our years of traveling, we’ve faced (and defeated!) a number of flight disruptions, including a few hours before a flight to Japan and while connecting the day before a Disney Cruise Line voyage out of Copenhagen that had us reenacting Planes, Trains and Automobiles (minus the automobiles).
With these staffing shortages and flight disruptions unlikely to abate anytime soon (a couple of our cancellations were during the offseason at times when supply/demand shouldn’t have been an issue), we thought it would be helpful to put together some tips of what we’ve learned from our past experiences. Obviously, not all of this is going to be immediately helpful–especially if you’re currently stranded at the airport–but it’s potentially useful knowledge to have for future bookings, too.
On that note, let’s begin with the booking process. For starters, book nonstop flights whenever possible. The reason here should be self-evident; fewer flights equals fewer potential disruptions.
That won’t be an option for some of you, as there are not nonstop routes between your city of origin and the destination. However, you might have more choices if you’re willing to drive a bit farther to a larger airport. For example, when traveling to and from Southern California, we often choose LAX over SNA even though the former is farther away. It’s also more of a “pain” on the ground, but usually fewer problems where it matters–in the air.
If you have no choice but to book a flight with a connection, try to do so in a hub city. (If you’re unfamiliar with which airports are hubs for each airline, Google your carrier of choice + hub cities.) In the event that your connection does get cancelled, you’ll be better off stuck in a city with a higher flight volume.
Conversely, try to avoid cities where inclement weather is more likely to cause a disruption. Atlanta makes for a better layover in December than Chicago. You might also want to build in a bit of a buffer with your layover–that shorter flight duration might be attractive, but 40 minutes is cutting it close when there’s even a minor delay.
Next, book with the airline directly. This isn’t an issue for those of you who fly Southwest, but it can be a problem with other airlines.
On occasion, it’s possible to find a deal on flights via Expedia or other booking engines on flights. There are discounted packages that include some combination of airfare, accommodations, and ground transportation. We would strongly discourage you from booking these, unless they offer tremendous savings that you simply cannot pass up.
The problem with these packages is dealing with a third party when attempting to rebook a flight. You’re going to have two problems. First, long telephone wait times (measured in hours, not minutes), as those booking engines are almost universally understaffed. Second, you’re going to get the runaround. The booking site will try to pass the buck to the airline, and vice-versa. There’s a <10% chance you’ll get the issue resolved with one phone call.
If you know us, you know we’re incredibly frugal and are huge deal hounds. However, we also know the value of our time and cost of inconvenience. To that end, there is no monetary savings that would convince me to roll the dice and book a flight via Expedia or another booking engine. None.
To each their own, but I’ve heard and witnessed enough horror stories to make the same mistake myself. As much as I love saving money, I love not pulling my hair out in frustration more. I simply don’t have enough hair left to sacrifice any more of it! If there’s a bundle discount, you can be certain there’s another way to save money–opt for that alternative.
Speaking of deals, I recently could’ve saved $60 by flying from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Orlando via Frontier. Unfortunately, the flight had a layover in Denver (yes, Colorado) and Frontier didn’t operate any flights out of GRR the following day. Suffice to say, that felt like playing with fire, so I paid the $60 extra for a nonstop flight. For me, that was worth the extra $60 for an entirely uneventful (and much shorter) flight.
Generally speaking, this is also one of several reasons why I’m averse to low-cost carriers. It’s not because I enjoy wasting money. Rather, since those low-cost carriers typically fly fewer routes, don’t have reciprocal relationships with other airlines, and are less responsive when issues arise since they compete on price and not customer service.
Fast-forward to post-booking, roughly 24 hours before departure. We’d recommend starting to periodically check out the status of your flight and the flights before your flight starting at that time. Many airlines have a “where is my plane coming from?” link right in their dashboard.
Failing that, FlightAware has a feature for tracing back your flight along with an interactive “Misery Map,” both of which can help anticipate disruptions before they are posted to your flight status.
Now, you shouldn’t freak out and call the airline to rebook if there’s a 20 minute delay nearly a day in advance of your flight, but if inclement weather or something else is clearly going to be an issue before your flight status is updated, it might behoove you to proactively call and attempt making an adjustment.
Many airlines will accommodate, especially once it’s obvious to them there will be systemic delays or cancellations; moving forward your flight essentially amounts to reduced future burden for them.
On the day of your flight, be sure you have the airline’s official app and are signed up for text message and push notifications about your flight status. In addition to the redundant alerts, having the app can be helpful for quickly rebooking if your flight status is officially changed to delayed or cancelled. In such a scenario, you’re essentially competing with other impacted customers; fast action in that capacity-constrained environment gives you an advantage.
Beyond that, customer service phone lines are notoriously short-staffed right now. By the time you’re able to get through, it might be too late or your options will be far more limited. (If there’s no button to rebook in your airline’s app, try contacting them on social media before calling.)
If none of that works, or if you’re already at the airport, head to a self-service kiosk or speak with a booking agent. Ideally, attempt to do both.
A self-service kiosk might be faster, but a human agent will usually have more options, including potentially rebooking you on another airline. (For the latter approach, it’s incredibly helpful if you already have a flight–with availability–in mind.)
In “advice that should be obvious,” be polite when speaking to a customer service representative. For one, it’s the right thing to do. For another, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. In other words, if you’re asking for an accommodation over which the agent has a degree of discretion, your odds of success are significantly higher if you’re nice.
If you’re traveling with multiple adults, know your strengths and play to them–this is why I head to the self-service kiosk while Sarah talks to an agent! People tend to like her more, whereas computers lack the sentience (for now) to dislike me.
This has been our approach over the years, and it has almost always worked out. The only times we’ve gotten stranded were scenarios when that was our best course of action and it didn’t really matter to us.
There are also other ‘advanced level’ things we are able do by virtue of credit cards and/or traveling frequently, such as having status with certain airlines and access to club lounges where lines are nonexistent and agents often go above and beyond. That’s more long-term strategy (useful for a variety of reasons) than near-term advice, though.
With that said, sometimes none of this advice will prove fruitful. There’s literally no way to salvage the situation–a point at which further efforts become a headache-inducing waste of time. I’d hazard a guess that right now is one of those times throughout much of the United States, as the volume of cancellations is so high, as is the degree of demand.
There simply aren’t a ton of good alternatives that haven’t already been booked. On top of that, customer service reps have likely taken abuse from people who didn’t read the “advice that should be obvious” above, and are less likely to go out of their way to help–even if you’re the most polite person ever.
That’s just the way it goes sometimes, in which case you can either keep trying to swim upstream in the hopes of getting lucky, or cut your losses and rebook another flight out of pocket (if available) or head off to a hotel. In this scenario, one final recommendation is to read the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Consumer Guide to Air Travel. If you’re traveling within or from another country, do a quick Google search for country name + travel bill of rights (or something like that). Many countries have imposed certain minimum airline requirements for compensation and addressing delays or cancellations.
More than anything else, the advice we’d offer is to minimize the odds of your flight being delayed or cancelled, prepare in advance for it anyway, and develop a plan for what to do when it happens. This will enable you to be decisive in the moment, implementing your strategy as quickly as possible to (hopefully) achieve the best outcome.
Need Disney trip planning tips and comprehensive advice? Make sure to read Disney & Universal Vacation Planning Guides, where you can find comprehensive guides to Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Universal Orlando & Hollywood, and beyond! For news & rumors, on-the-ground updates, discount information, free downloads of our eBooks, and much more, sign up for our FREE email newsletter!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you experienced any flight cancellations or noteworthy delays while traveling during the spring break season or when there’s inclement weather? What’s your strategy to reduce the likelihood of travel disruptions? Any other tips or anecdotal advice/experiences for addressing and overcoming cancellations that might arise? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We were supposed to leave Disney on Friday April 1, but had two different flights cancelled on us. We ended up standing 1.5 hours in line for a rental care and driving 13 hours through the night to get home. We even slept 2 hours at a rest stop! But I am so glad we did! I feel like we’d still be in the very very overcrowded airport right now. It was nuts.
I’d just like to add: If your flight does get delayed or cancelled and you’re striking out with the phone support, try Twitter! Last Friday, we were due to fly to Orlando the next day with American Airlines when we found out that our first outbound flight had been delayed to the point that we would have missed our connecting flight. Hold time for customer service on the phone exceeded 4 hours, and I was desperately trying to get our first flight rebooked to something earlier, but that flight was less than 12 hours away. While on hold, I messaged AA’s Twitter account asking if they could help me. Within 30 minutes, they had me rebooked onto the earlier flight!
Then, the following morning, our new connecting flight was cancelled and they tried to put me on a much later connecting flight which would have meant spending all day in an airport with tired and cranky kids on a layover. I messaged them again asking if they could move me to an earlier flight (even though they appeared to be fully booked with a long standby list), and once again they pulled off a miracle and got us on that earlier flight!
I can’t promise it’s the same for every airline, but it does seem like more and more companies these days have a strong social media team for customer support.
We are set to fly southwest in May. Both flights have layovers, which make me nervous but there is only one non stop option and it gets in later than we want to. I’m really hoping things are better by May
We are flying into Orlando/Sanford airport. Any suggestions on the best shuttle to Disney from there?
Another advanced technique: book a back-up flight in advance, preferably on a different airline, and then cancel it if you don’t need it. This works well if you stick with the major airlines and avoid “basic economy” tickets that aren’t cancellable. Delta, American, and United have recently joined Southwest in not having change or cancellation fees.
I have a trip to Orlando planned in early January, and I currently have flights booked both on Delta and Southwest. I booked both of them with miles/points. Either of them can be cancelled up to 10 minutes before departure. I am planning to fly the Delta flight and cancel the Southwest flight once the Delta flight is off the ground. But if Delta is having operational difficulties, I have the option to cancel that flight and take Southwest instead. Either way, I get my points/miles for the unused flight deposited right back into my account.
Note: I don’t recommend you try this with two flights on the same airline. Some airlines (Southwest in particular) will proactively cancel one of your reservations if you make two reservations for the same person from the same city on the same day. And anyway, using two different airlines helps diversify your risk.
I was feeling very nervous but then saw the comment to try ALLIGIANT. THANKS Dave. That’s what I booked and feel a little better! Crossing fingers for early January!
I was traveling to Disney April 2021 with my family plus one infant. it was a trip that was originally booked and re-booked many times due to Covid. I had never planned to travel with an infant but I was left with no choice. On the flight back we flew from Orlando with a layover in one of the Carolinas . Our flight in Orlando was delayed by 2 hours. We now had a mere 40 minutes to make our connection. After speaking with the airline representative, we were told to not reschedule onto a later flight and that we would make our connection. We were also told that most likely our connecting flight would be delayed as well. None of that happened and after quite literally running across the airport we missed our connection and were told that there were no other flights that day and that we’d have to sleep in the airport with an infant. We had no food for my kid and very few diapers. Needless to say, we ended up rerouting on the last flight of the night to an airport 2 hours away and had to find someone to drive and pick us up at midnight. It was absolute hell!
This is a cautionary tale of ever trusting the gate agents. Trust your gut and speak up for yourself. Reschedule or cancel if you think it’s not going to work out. Pay the fees if you need to because yes most airline will charge you if you choose to reschedule or cancel a flight before they do it.
I’ll be REALLY curious to see what the lines and crowds are like for luggage drop-off and pick-up after Disney Magical Express goes away this weekend. I always used DME, so I never had to stand in line to check a suitcase at MCO. How long do you think THAT will take?
One thing you forgot to mention was trip insurance. It is totally worth the little extra money to help in situations like this. As a former travel agent, I always recommend this to all travelers.
So if there are flight cancellations and delayed vacations, is there a way we can scoop up these unused rooms at a huge discount?
I noticed you recommended avoiding cut rate airlines. If you can, give Allegiant a try. All flights are non-stop and mostly on time. My wife and I use them between Asheville NC and Sanford all the time. Great staff and flights at $125 round trip with checked baggage you can’t go wrong. Great post. Keep up the good work and Happy New Year to you and Sarah.
Dave
We visited WDW in 5/2021 and 12/2021 flying SWA.
Please be sure to get to MCO at least 3 hours before your flight.
Both times we arrrived 2 hours and 15 minutes before our flight and would never had been able to check our luggage and get through TSA ( we both have TSA precheck) in time to make our flighthad I not greased the Porter. Disney Magic Express , Meirs shuttle, and Sunshine Flyer ( starting in 2/2022) PICK UP travelers 3 hours prior. This is NOT enough time.
Would be prudent to be picked up four hours prior to you flight. I can only say this when traveling Southwest Airlines/
We’ve visited WDW every year (except 2020) for the past 12 years and always used the Magical Express. We flew on several different airlines, including Southwest without a hitch. That being said though, we all are able to use a carry-on and a personal item and were there for 7 to 9 nights.
My family of 6 (kids 8,6,4, and 18 months) fly to Wdw from Grand Rapids several times a year, with only a backpack each (We do the super cheap frontier flight). We do laundry at the resort. We save a lot of money by not paying fees for bags, but also for not having space to bring home tons of souvenirs. We usually have enough space in the kids back packs for some crafts. We also order delivery from Walmart for essentials like sun block!
If I were traveling with 6 people…or even if Frontier had flights out of GRR the following day…or it weren’t the holiday travel season…my calculus might’ve been different. Sounds like you have the backpacks-only strategy down to a science! 🙂
On Monday we were traveling to Seattle from SNA. We were receiving delay texts as we were just arriving at the airport (after an initial 3 hour delay.) The last notification was a delay until 9:30 pm and JWA has a curfew of 10 pm. I immediately spoke to a Delta agent and we were rebooked on Alaska airlines and diverted to LAX. Delta also paid for our Lyft. I am a silver medallion member so I don’t know if that helped. We did make it to Seattle late that night and our original flight was rescheduled to the next morning. You have to act fast!
Hi Tom,
Where’s your travel hacking blog? You’ve made a couple references to that kinda stuff now, and I’d love to touch base on the best points and miles redemptions to Disney.
That’s more Sarah’s domain than mine. I used to be really into travel hacking, card churning, etc–but it’s a lot to stay on top of with all of the rule changes and whatnot. At this point, Sarah does almost everything and is more or less in charge of what cards we both have and use.
Tom,
What is Disney’s policy on getting the resort cost back if your flight is cancelled??
We sure had delays in September on the way to Orlando for the Give Kids The World Black and White Gala. Our 8 am flight down turned into a 4 something which got added onto when an issue in the cockpit was found. We finally made it to MCO at 9:30pm!!!
We were walking around Epcot on Thursday when we were notified by Delta our Christmas night flight was cancelled. They’d already rescheduled us to a Sunday morning flight, but while watching the Candlelight Processional, my wife simultaneously got us rebooked for Christmas morning, which saved us another hotel night and car rental day. Christmas morning at the airport was relatively quiet. We got to the airport area around 6:45 and by 7:30 we had rental car returned, bags checked, through security and over to the gate area. The new flights were on time and all worked out.
We only missed out on Topolinos breakfast but it was nice to get home early and we were fortunate to not be stranded, though we picked the wrong week to leave home for Florida. Much colder at home this week than last week.
Good example of how your own due diligence can result in a better/different outcome. Leaving early probably stung a bit, but the extra night in a hotel with peak season pricing probably would’ve stung more! 😉
I love your tip about finding out “where is my plane coming from?” Our flight home was scheduled to depart MCO 7:20 pm but the plane was coming from New Hampshire with thunderstorms. Our flight was delayed 3 times until finally departing at 12:45 AM. TIP: carry-on bags are recommended in case your flight gets canceled while already at the airport. If our flight would have canceled, we could have easily and quickly left the airport with all our bags.
“TIP: carry-on bags are recommended in case your flight gets canceled while already at the airport. If our flight would have canceled, we could have easily and quickly left the airport with all our bags.”
Just one of the many benefits of traveling with carry-ons only–that’s what we always do. However, I figure in a blog about Disney travel, that’s not realistic advice for many families.
Thanks for this info! We’re supposed to fly out to Orlando in Mid-February for our trip and I’m starting to wonder if we may want have a back up plan.
Any idea how long we think these flight issues will last?
The worst of the flight issues are probably going to happen in the next 2 weeks as holiday travel is still high and Omicron cases continue increasing, resulting in more flight crew members calling in sick. If history repeats itself, cases resulting from holiday gatherings will likely peak in mid-January–but by then, holiday demand will have fallen off, giving the system more slack.
As for the staffing shortages, who knows. Experts seem to think they’re going to persist the entire year.