For those hanging on the edge of their seat as to my travel schedule, here's a short followup to “Got to the Airport a Day Early to Find my Flight Delayed Four Days” and “Finally Got My Return Flight Rescheduled”....
TL;DR version: Canceled again.
I was supposed to leave Akron Ohio this evening, but United Airlines canceled my flight (again), and not due to weather (again). Both times now it's been canceled well in advance of the actual flight. My educated guess is that they decide they need the plane more importantly elsewhere.
Anyway, the current schedule now is to go out on Sunday night, stay in San Francisco on Sunday night, leave from San Francisco on Monday morning, and arrive in Osaka on Tuesday night.
We'll see.
Update: big thanks to the hotel I'd booked for my overnight in San Francisco, The Dylan at SFO, for allowing me to move my reservation to the new day even though it was past their cancellation-cutoff time.
Update: on a whim I took a look at the how the Chicago→SFO flight I was supposed to be on is doing, and see: “Estimated Departure 1 Hour 38 Minutes Late (Delayed - Cargo loading)”. Ugh, glad I missed it, I guess.
Update: now it's “2 Hours 13 Minutes Late (Delayed - Aircraft servicing)”. I guess I shouldn't be surprised... looking at that flight's history on FlightAware.com, it seems to rarely be less than an hour late getting out, often much more. It looks to have gotten away on time only two or three times in the last month. Ugh.
"Statistically, when taking into consideration sample size, standard deviation, and mean, this flight is on-time more often than 0% of other flights." — flightstats.com giving it the worst possible score in on-time performance.
Watching the connecting flight I'm supposed to take on Sunday get more and more delayed (now almost three hours), and considering that it has almost a 0% on-time rating, I just changed my reservation to a direct flight out of Cleveland. It's less convenient, but less chance of stranding me.
Half an hour ago it said "Departed Gate 2 Hours 35 Minutes Late, taxiing to runway (Delayed - Aircraft servicing)", but it still hasn't taken off. Glad I switched.
Final? update: it took 45 minutes after it took off (and after FlightAware.com started showing realtime data) for United to update the status to “in flight”.
Your experience with the hotel is the dirty little secret of “cancellation deadlines”.
Business travel changes All. The. Time. Nearly every hotel in existence will let you reschedule a date, even at the last minute, without incurring the penalty.
So the next time you have a room you want to cancel, and don’t want to pay the cancellation fee, just change the date on it to a couple days later. THEN, cancel it, well in advance of the “24 hours before arrival” deadline.
OK – now I’m starting to get suspicious. Does Mom have influence over – or dirt on- Jeff Smisek?
FROM ROCKPORT TX
I have heard from a reliable source that a slow down at Midway airport in Chicago by Southwest airlines ramp crews has spread to other airports and airlines. It started 10 days ago over a long drawn or dispute over an expired contract.