Be proactive when weather delays flights
Airlines don’t owe you anything when Mother Nature disrupts travel plans
No one likes a flight delay. But a weather delay – that’s the worst.
Why? Because when an airline plays the weather card, it doesn’t owe you anything, except a seat on the next available flight. No meal voucher, no hotel. Nothing.
But that doesn’t mean you’re out of options. Consider what happened to Jenn Earley when a powerful storm delayed her recent flight from Philadelphia to Grand Rapids, Michigan. She faced a long delay, possibly until the next day.
“I would have been stuck or delayed like many passengers traveling the northeast corridor,” she says.
About one-half of 1 percent of all domestic flights experienced a weather delay last year, according to the Department of Transportation. And it’s true: You have virtually no consumer rights when Mother Nature delays your flight. But you can take a few steps that will get you to your destination faster.
❚ What are your rights in a weather delay? When weather delays a flight, it’s easy to feel as if you’re at the mercy of your airline. Yes, you can ask for and receive a full refund on your ticket. But not much more. You can find out more about your rights in your airline’s contract of carriage or conditions of carriage – the legal agreement between you and the carrier.
American Airlines, for example, is clear about its obligations: “If the delay or cancellation is caused by events beyond our control (like weather) you are responsible for your own overnight accommodations, meals and incidental expenses,” it says in its contract. “American Airlines agents may be able to help you find a hotel.” Read that last part one more time. American “may” be able to help you. And it won’t pay for the hotel – just “find” one for you.
❚ Check your email. Earley, a travel agent, knows a thing or two about the airline industry. She understands that the sophisticated scheduling systems try to find a way to rebook passengers when weather disrupts flight operations. So she did something many travelers forget to do: She checked her email
before her flight.
Sure enough, she found a message from American Airlines, offering to rebook her on an earlier or later flight at no additional cost.
Also, check the operation of other flights between your cities on a site such as Flightaware.com. A site such as Aviationweather.gov can help verify if your delay is caused by weather.
❚ Don’t waste your time. Travel experts such as Phil Sylvester avoid standing in a long line to ask for help. That’s what happened to him when Qantas canceled a recent flight from Sydney to Melbourne in Australia because of thunderstorms. It was the last flight of the day, and passengers began to rush the customer service desk.
“I knew that delays due to weather are not the responsibility of the airline,” says Sylvester, who works for a travel insurance company in Sydney. “I jumped on a hotel booking app and found a room for us close to the airport; my wife called the airline reservations number and began negotiating for the first available flight the next morning.”
You don’t have to accept the first replacement flight your airline offers. You can negotiate.
And don’t let anyone tell you airlines never help passengers during weather delays. They do, but they are selective. Here’s where elite status and special circumstances come into play. For example, if you’re sitting in business class or are traveling with children and weather causes a flight delay or cancellation, your airline may cover meals or a hotel on a case-by-case basis. But it doesn’t have to.