Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrisbolt | Hacker News Reader

United proactively rebooks you on a new flight if you will misconnect, gives you options in the app, and issues waivers that let you avoid weather by rebooking your own flight (often waiving fare differences as well). Haven't flown Delta or American as much, but at least United's tech is a bit more modern.

View on HN

As a matter of course I avoid United, and American doesn't have much presence out of SFO or OAK. Delta has done right by me each and every time something's come up.

Stuck on the tarmac in the snow and miss the connecting flight (last of the day)? They automatically rebooked me on another airline and I got a notification from the app as soon as I had reception.

3+ SFO bound flights delayed at JFK because of crazy winds at SFO? They proactively encouraged people to rebook, gratis. I rebooked on a flight the next day on nicer equipment, through the app, went into town, grabbed some bagels and had a flight at a nearly ideal time of day.

Regional plane goes tech? They had a red coat out and about keeping everyone informed.

Missed a flight because I misread the departure time? They sold me a same day ticket on the next flight at a hefty discount and I kept the inbound leg.

Southwest has a huge disadvantage and it's not tech: it's the lack of interline agreements. Nearly every other airline (except perhaps Spirit) can rebook you on another carrier when things go sideways. Southwest simply can't. With an interline agreement in place you'd have far fewer people getting stuck with exorbitant last minute fares.

In general though don't fly when you're getting unusual weather. Less than an inch of snow at PDX throws everything into chaos (and Portlanders call it fucking snowpocalypse). A few inches of snow at PWM and they don't even blink.

Notably, per the Alaska agent I spoke to about my cancelled Alaska flight, Delta doesn't let other airlines rebook on Delta flights. That may just be an Alaska/Delta thing but it's not obvious full reciprocity.

I find it hard to believe that Delta (or any other major airline) wouldn't reciprocate. When I got rebooked onto an Alaska flight, the gate agents were openly annoyed at having to accommodate Delta passengers. However, the relationship between Alaska and Delta has grown more adversarial so who knows.

I should also add that a few years back when my Southwest flight out of SFO got cancelled I was able to book a seat on a flight out of OAK with a minimum of effort. I think I had to pay the difference in fare though. When it works, it works, but the go it alone attitude will only take you so far.

Someone below linked this company as an example of resiliency tools used in airfare. Interestingly, there's a testimonial from United on one of the front page videos.

Maybe not 1:1 for what you're describing, but it solution/reason, but does seem like a possible sign that they're investing in proactive tools.

https://www.slickor.com/

Yeah delta will do this as well. The app will let you pick any flight that day for free if you do not like the one it auto rebooked you on. I usually just take the one it gives me, but if it tries to route me through DTW or MSP with bad weather in the winter I will try to find one that goes through ATL instead.

My American flight on Monday was delayed (crew rest requirement was the reason given, which actually means not enough crew). It was a connecting flight so once it was about 90 min delayed it wouldn’t be possible to make the other leg.

AA live chat said they couldn’t help (other than rebooking 2 days later which would be pointless) but when I called they were able to drop the connection inbound and outbound so I could drive to the hub city airport (cost me like 2 hours each way, nbd).

They fixed it in like 3 minutes on the phone but it seems like they have to do it in a super hacky way because I had to check in at the airport which was no fun with long holiday lines.

Your claim: "crew rest requirement was the reason given, which actually means not enough crew" is incorrect.

Consider: when a flight is delayed for a repair (maintenance delay) does that equal "not enough aircraft"?

Carriers can't staff surplus crews any more than they can sit on spare aircraft, both which are small, very carefully computed quantities.

It is a crew rest requirement delay.

Delta’s irregular ops procedures have always treated me right (in comms and in performance) and their app is pretty decent.

If I’ve had a missed connection en route, I’ll generally land and the app tells me what they’ve already rebooked me onto, but I have a choice of many different alternatives (usually) and can pick among them without cost and without waiting in a call queue.

> Haven't flown Delta or American as much

Delta does this well too. Haven’t heard many good things about American.

Delta offers you a buggy website to rebook for no fee. I changed to a flight that was about $1,000 more expensive a few days ago. (note that the significant price change is an edge case caused by travelling on Christmas being particularly undesirable)

United is absolute worst. Many of my colleagues are frequent flyers on United. I just do not trust United. They lost it completely when they caused that unnecessary incident where they forcibly removed that doctor from a plane. And then there is United Breaks Guitar, the viral book about their "legendary" customer service. I will never fly that airline.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com