Domestic Flight Schedule Reductions

[cruiseless]

USA Today and other news outlets have reported that 3,000 domestic flights/day will be eliminated by this Thanksgiving. Just wondering how these cutbacks are affecting anybody's plans so far?

[6rugrats]

Not affecting mine at all.

[paul929207]

We are going to India next month and the tour company had to change our flyght from Greenville to Chicago from American to United when AA dropped the route. Not a problem.

[FlyerTalker]

The article is quite misleading. The comparison is between T'giving 2008 and the same period in 2007. They wrote the article, and headline, to make it seem that many flights are being cancelled just for the holiday season, or just now. Truth is, many of these schedule changes have been happening all year - it is a cumulative number, but that fact is buried in the text.

 

In addition, they are also looking at the flights on Thanksgiving day itself for some of the comparisons. That is traditionally a light travel day, so the airlines are being smart and not running some regular flights - ON THAT DAY ONLY.

 

The article continues with other disingenuous "facts". It bemoans the loss of service on AA between MCI and DAL, failing to note that there is still AA service to DFW. Between Spokane and Seattle, USAToday wastes a paragraph on a former once-a-day route that likely had lousy loads and yields.

 

More headline hype from McNews....worth exactly what I pay for it....nothing (I only pick it up when the hotel or airline gives it to me for free).

[sandm]

Thank you FlyerTalker, always the voice of reason. I always appreceiate your knowledge and input.

[cruiseless]

FlyerTalker makes a lot of good points about the hype in the article. On the other hand, multiple news reports are fairly consistent in reporting an aggregate reduction in domestic seats of 20 million/year. My travel agent shared with me today that one of her group bookings for 14 indivuduals traveling to Cabo was informed by Continental that their flight down was no more, thereby forcing new plans and additional costs. It will be interesting to see how these changes affect travel over the next couple months.

[TravlGrl]

My Jetblue flight from Boston to Orlando was canceled. Jetblue re-booked me on a flight that leaves at 7:25 a.m. from Boston, yet my flight IN to Boston from Seattle doesn't even arrive until 7:28 a.m. Not possible to even make the flight while it's already in the air!

 

Anyway, I called and they re-booked me to a different flight. Now, I have a 3-hour layover. Not a big deal. The agent admitted that they are discontinuing several flights and my original one was one of them.