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The Elephant in the Room (skies)

AlanS

Last month I reported on our experiences trying to get to and home from Treasures of the Aegean, especially our domestic connecting flights to and from JFK. Things have only gotten worse since then. We don't have any trips schedule for the next few months, but I am a bit gun-shy when it comes to our trip in December for which we already booked flights earlier this year and especially for the flights we are getting ready to book for our trip next summer.

How many of you are worried about the high probability of flight delays and cancellations on your next trip this summer and fall? Have you taken any steps to reduce the risk?

Comments

BKMD

I think it's mostly an issue this summer and holidays. I have a trip to San Francisco on tap later this month. Flying weekdays and not really concerned. United has something like 8 non-stops/day from DEN.

My trip to Egypt in late Fall. Well, a little concern, but you can only book adn wait and see.

JohnS

AlanS
3:19PM
How many of you are worried about the high probability of flight delays and cancellations on your next trip this summer and fall?

Add me to the worrywart list. Five weeks from Tuesday we are off to Dublin for our Ireland trip. We were originally booked on United from Seattle to Dublin via San Francisco (SFO). United cancelled that route and rebooked us via Newark. United and Newark have been in the news recently about significant cancellations and flight reductions at Newark (EWR). We have a 1:27 connection time in Newark.

Short answer Worried – Yes.

British

Well, we fly from Philly to Dallas on Thursday, on to Anchorage Alaska, so we are concerned. We have been tracking the Dallas flight for the past week, all were on time except one day when it was cancelled due to weather. I’m still concerned. This is only our second time out of the country since March 2020. The only concern is testing positive halfway through the tour when we get on the ship, I would hate to be thrown off the ship halfway through the tour.

MCD

I'm concerned, but there's nothing much I can do about it. I looked into moving my next pre-trip flight from July 29 to July 28 (transiting through CDG on a 3.5 hour layover) and it would have cost me over $2,000 to do so. I have already built in a one-day cushion before the tour starts, so I'm not paying that. We'll see what happens!

kfnknfzk

I have a different perspective. I don't worry about things I have absolutely no control over. I certainly would not care to be inconvenienced by cancelations/delays, but purchasing air through Tauck, purchasing travel insurance and always arriving days before the tour starts afford me a cushion of protection in case things go awry.

terrilynn

We fly out in Sept to the Ultimate Alp & Dolomites with the Passion Play, we fly into Munich one day PreTour - not too worried -- although a flight cancel would be a terrible way to start the trip, but as long as we get there.
Our next trip is THANKSGIVING Friday for our Danube Xmas Market trip with 2 other couples and it being Thanksgiving weekend, we are SUPER worried about cancels with it being one of the biggest and most demanded flying times of the year -- hoping we will be ok since it is Friday and not Wednesday before Thanksgiving or Sunday after???
We had NO idea all this would be happening when we booked this flight in February. We do have USAA TripInsurance and they have always taken great care of us with any issue. It's our friends first time in Europe and hoping for a smooth trip for their sake.

TEF

We were just on the Grand Alaska tour with land and then Royal Princess cruise. You get tested the night before getting on the ship. 30% of our tour group could not board due to covid and was told to quarantine in the hotel. Testing is not always perfect, my husband was positive but I was not. Two days later I was positive. I am sure many others boarded and then a day or two later will be positive. Covid is all over. We diligently wore masks on the plane and on the bus and tours yet a large percent of our group got it anyway. Now we will deal with insurance for reimbursement and fees we incur, Tauck is there to help which is a plus..

MikeCoyner

On August 14 we are booked to fly to Newark to connect on a direct flight to Cape Town. We are changing plans and will be driving to Newark (5 hours) to catch the international flight. We’ve worried less since making this decision.

MarketArt

TEF, so sorry you and the others couldn't complete your travels. Hope you are both doing well. The new vaccines later this year should have some power against omicron, but for now all we can do is be glad we will likely avoid serious illness.

kfnknfzk

terrilynn,

I think you will be fine since you are flying internationally. They (whoever they are) always claim that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the worst flying day since people are making their way home. I am sure it will still be chaotic...just give yourself plenty of time.

sevenseas

I am chiming in to bear testament that problems, though uncommon, can happen. Indeed I should be on my first day of K & T tour instead of writing you from my deck. We had multiple problems with flights and never ended up leaving JFK. We had GOT plus an extra day built in, and with that, we could not make a go of it and had to cancel the tour and invoke trip insurance, with a hope to try again in a few weeks. In our case, for our first flight on Wednesday we had boarded at noon, sent selfies to family, and had even been served a business class welcome drink, when the technical problems with the aircraft began. After a period of time, we had to deplane and spent the rest of the day into the evening hoping it would be a go, though a 3-hour connection was already lost. Ultimately we were told to come back the next day at the same departure time (staying over at the TWA Hotel, which was a bright spot). But our bags were kept on the aircraft, which was being serviced on the tarmac away from the gate. Thursday brought a plane still not ready to fly, and uncertainty if it would. Bags were returned to us at 3 PM, but without knowing about bag return, it was hard to book an alternate flight, which ultimately we did do with a super helpful travel agent Thursday afternoon. But that outbound (the long haul connection in Doha) at 1 AM Friday meant a long afternoon and evening at the airport, which we were willing to do. With our bags loaded on board, and boarding about to start, the text arrived.....the flight was canceled (due to crew issues it was said). At that point we were looking at slim options for departure Friday night from either Boston or PHL, both contending with holiday road traffic and airport and air traffic issues to possibly make it happen. Too much uncertainty, and coupling long haul flight after 2 days of exhaustion, it was not very palatable and would have us missing too much of an expensive trip, assuming all went perfect (and it was the holiday weekend with lots of warnings already). Anyway, I don't think this is the norm, but know that it does happen. We had a back of trip stay in Amsterdam planned, and we will try to catch up to that to salvage something. And we are hopeful that Tauck will be able to confirm us onto a different departure in a few weeks (every vendor for the tour has to first confirm availability notwithstanding the website saying available). For sure with a near-term booking, the airfare for a departure in a few weeks looks quite expensive (original air was rewards bookings all around), and that is a hidden cost coming out of this ordeal. For sure there are lots more important problems in our world these days, but we are saddened nonetheless after a 2-year postponement of the trip.

AlanS

sevenseas
9:32PM

Wow, that beats our hassle! At least we arrived right as they were taking meal orders at the welcome dinner.

I think the biggest issue for us is domestic connections. Unfortunately we do not have the same option as MikeCoyner. We are about equidistant from JFK and ATL. One option is to begin our overseas leg at IAD- our daughter lives only 10 min from the airport. It takes us 5 hours driving to get there, but departing flights on our preferred carrier are somewhat limited, and we are faced with a 5 hour drive home. If headed to Europe we can get a direct flight from our feeder airport to CDG, but then, if headed elsewhere in Europe, we are stuck with Euro business for the remaining leg.

We always try to book flights with connections in the US and avoid connections in Europe. The current situation is causing us to re-evaluate that.

dogdoctor

Well I've been watching flightaware/flighstats for weeks just trying to get trend of the flights. I've got the family all checked in for tomorrow out of Boston, Logan, but I know the flight has a near 85% certainty of being delayed by 45 minutes. That's seriously going to eat into our connection time of 1:55 min in Frankfurt. We had a direct BOS to MUC flight originally back in 2020, but with all the changes we eventually had to settle on one with a connection in FRA (cost concerns for the family). In the end I should have bit the bullet and just rebooked direct, but heck - we had no idea it was going to be like this at the time. My lessons learned this year - 1. buy flights directly from the airline (minimize the middle man). 2. minimize connections where you can, and extend the layovers. 3. buy Apple AirTags or equivalent tracking devices. 4. have travel insurance. Outside of that keep your fingers crossed, have a drink, and enjoy the ride.

A nice NYT Piece: Vacationing 101 for Those Who Have Forgotten How

Oh and strangely (for those COVID concerned), Lufthansa is still requiring masks (KN95/N95 or equivalent) on flights!

Hope to check in with you all from Munich Tuesday - with all our bags!

mil

Not worry, I'm flying with Emirates!

AlanS

dogdoctor
10:57PM
Well I've been watching flightaware/flighstats for weeks just trying to get trend of the flights. I've got the family all checked in for tomorrow out of Boston, Logan, but I know the flight has a near 85% certainty of being delayed by 45 minutes. That's seriously going to eat into our connection time of 1:55 min in Frankfurt.

The jetstream is not as fast in the summer as it is in the winter, but still flows west to east. 45 min. is easy to make up over the span of a transatlantic flight if the pilot wants to.

Dottie D

Count me among the concerned, but not yet panicked. Unfortunately I wasn’t focusing on connection times when I booked the flights 330 days out. We leave on Friday for Scotland with only a 50 minute connection time in Denver from our regional airport. We hope to be able to do the 24 hour free change to an earlier flight, or at least standby for it. If not, we’re just hoping for the best. I’ve been checking the last couple of weeks and there was only one day it definitely wouldn’t have worked, and another couple of days that were really close. Our connection in Frankfurt to Glasgow is just under 2 hours, which also may be a little too close for comfort, but I understand is doable if there are no issues.

W are going a day early with GOT, so hopefully all will be okay.

franlovestravel

Dogdoctor, it’s Germany that’s requiring masks on public transportation, so Lufthansa is following Germany’s rules. Good luck with your trip, I hope it’s fantastic. Frankfurt is such a crazy airport to connect through. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.

For me, I’m staying state side until next May. Hoping that some of these issues will get resolved.

British

Seven seas, what a terrible ordeal! Qatar air too, which we love. You will have to check, but make sure your visas are correct for a change in date, I think they are good for 90 days but can’t recall if they have specific start days on them. See if you can get money back for visas too
We have always preferred longer layovers, but our upcoming flight is I think under two hours, I leave flights to Mr B.
We cancelled both our Israel and Jordan tour and our Botswana Odyssey tours months ago because of crazy layover times, either too short, and flights changing every few weeks leaving from the US at different airports and going through different countries for the I an J flight and. 23 hour layover for the other when we could not leave the airport and more testing to go on.
We decided to change our preferred departure date away from July 4th to the following tour for our just booked Africa tour. We have always tried to avoid travel around bank holidays, both in Britain and here. Non of us could have predicted the added flight chaos to Covid problems.

AlanS

British
6:12AM
. . . . . None of us could have predicted the added flight chaos to Covid problems.

COVID- the gift that keeps on giving! The pundit who predicted that we wouldn't be fully recovered from the effects of COVID until 2024 is turning out to be quite prophetic!

SandyFeet

What does the Forum think about the possibility of another booster in the fall? It would be my fifth jab and six months since my fourth one.

Smiling Sam

If it's CDC recommended, then I will get it. I think it's still up in the air if that happens.

British

No guarantees, I’ll probably be one of the first to know, my son works at Pfizer.

JanP

I think they will be tweaking the vaccine to target the newest omicron variants. From what I’ve read, it is expected to be available by October or early November. I definitely will get it—we had our second booster in mid-April. It may have provided sufficient protection that when exposed to two individuals on our May I/J tour who tested positive mid-tour, we continued to test negative for the balance of the tour.

cvc

We will get it when available. Hoping it is more effective at targeting Omicron variants. We've had both boosters and even though we got Covid on our last trip, our symptoms were mild.

British

We have been at three superspreaders lately, can’t really believe we remained negative. Everyone had to be vaccinated to attend, most double boosted, but several got really ill. Being usually huge mask wearers, ….yes I know SeaLord says we should wear two masks, … we went into these fully aware of our risks not wearing masks, it was the only way we could get back to ‘normal’ for these events. We were together for many hours, very close together and chatting away or singing. I think everyone was surprised when we realized how many tested positive, just so random…I did notice that more women than men, not surprising. We gather together and chatted non stop compared to men 😂😂😂
CDC AMD FDA approval, takes forever

MarketArt

sevenseas...so sorry about (let's hope) the postponement. Your positive attitude is admirable. Used to be arriving early was just to beat jet lag; now it's become a necessity, but still doesn't always work out. That TWA hotel looks like an interesting repurposing.

SandyFeet

British, Moderna made me sick for two days each of the three times I had it. My second booster was Pfizer so please thank your son for me; very mild reaction compared to Moderna. 😎

gladysorlando984

How many of you are worried about the high probability of flight delays and cancellations on your next trip this summer and fall? Have you taken any steps to reduce the risk?

I have a trip to Chicago this month to visit my grandson and I'm worried about it, decided that if they try to reschedule I will cancel. I also have a tour to Scandinavia in August and to Singapore in September, have no idea what to do about those although I have extra days at each place so I'll see how it goes.

gladysorlando984

WOW it did shade, thank you Alan, didn't realize that it shades after posting.

AlanS

Gladys- remember you can always "Preview" to see what your post will look like, if OK, then click "Post Comment" or if it has problems click "Edit." Once posted, you can always go back to edit by clicking the little gear icon in the upper right of your post window which it looks like you just discovered. Unfortunately, after you Edit a posted entry, you are not given the option to Preview.