If you’re planning to travel by air anytime in the next few weeks, you may understandably be concerned about the Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement that it plans to cut flights at Sky Harbor and at least 39 other airports. To reduce the chance of a cancellation ruining your plans, here are tips to consider.
If you haven’t yet booked your flight:
Avoid connecting flights if possible. Two flights double your chances of a problem.
Travel the day before if it’s something important. Or get the first flight of the day. Avoid evening flights if possible.
Avoid booking tickets through a third-party site unless the trip and a timely refund aren’t important.
Whether or not you’ve already booked your flight:
Download the airline’s app and make sure your contact information is up to date with the airline.
Check your app notifications, emails, voicemail and text messages at least daily between now and the time you depart. If your flight is canceled, the airline may offer you another flight and you may need to respond quickly to snag it before all of the seats are gone.
Put trackers in your bags, in case your flight gets canceled or switched. Trackers are good even in carry-on bags because increasingly, flyers are asked to gate-check a carry-on bag.
Check on your plane’s status the morning of, or, even the night before. Flightaware.com is great for tracking your actual airplane, going back a few flights. You can see whether there are delays that could domino and cause problems for you.
Have a backup plan. Maybe that’s buying another ticket with another carrier now that is refundable, or that you can at least get a flight credit for. Maybe you drive. Maybe you choose not to travel.
Frontier’s CEO suggested buying only refundable tickets and recommended booking a backup ticket with another airline. United’s CEO said the airline will refund people’s flights starting Nov. 7 even if their flight isn’t canceled and isn’t going through one of the affected airports.
Know your rights
If your flight is canceled or significantly delayed (meaning an arrival three hours or more late) and you want a refund, you’re entitled to it. Most likely, you probably just want to get where you were going as quickly as possible. If the airline can get you on the next flight and that works for you, that’s great. If you can get a seat on another airline, ask the airline that canceled or delayed your flight to transfer your ticket at no cost to you. While airlines don’t have to do this unless it’s a “controllable” cancellation or delay and they’ve vowed to the U.S. Dept. or Transportation they’ll honor this, many will if you ask.
Check out our other tips at PIRG.org/FlightTips. And please keep in mind, the airlines or TSA employee you are talking with likely didn’t cause your problem, but they might be able to help you fix it.
