Flight Loads / Cancelations

[quoo]

We have two flights to Florida this summer - one in a little under a month on United to RSW, one to MCO towards the end of august on Delta both from the NYC area. From the airline seatmap both flights look super empty which is making me worried. I suppose a bunch of the seats could be sold w/o seat assignments, but it doesn't seem like it would be that many.

I always book super early (to the point my husband teases me for it, and always make sure we have seat assignments even if I have to pay extra. But I don't think I'm the norm.

For those of you that have flown recently have you dealt with last minute cancelations / flight consolidations? How far out do you usually book your flights? Do you book seat assignments when you fly?

 

[Best Aunt]

One factor that sometimes applies - does the airline need to get the plane to that airport even if it's mostly empty? Once the plane gets to that airport, it will be off on another flight, and that second flight might be fully booked. So the airline might need to get that plane there.

 

[quoo]

true! just hard to tell and weird that both our flights are so empty. Although our flight back from RSW is much fuller.

 

[Dis703]

FWIW, I have found that my flights often appear to be almost empty because so many people don't pick seat assignments. But that's flying Frontier which may or may not make a difference. Even at check in 24 hours ahead the seats open to pick are at least half of the flight. But every flight I've taken has been at least 90% full if not overbooked.

I only started picking my seats in advance when I reached elite status and it became free. Prior to that it's been years since I bothered with a seat selection.

During COVID was the only time I've had flights that were almost empty but they still took off because as a previous poster mentioned the flight still has to get to the next airport to take their next leg. They did however cancel some of the mid week flights for a while (a few weeks out), but that seems to have stopped as more people are now flying again.

 

[RalphRR]

I fly on United whenever I visit the mouse from Chicago Ohare. I usually book far in advance and wait for United to change my flight several times before it goes. Sometimes cancelling a flight and pushing everyone onto another half full flight. Lately flights have been totally full so changes are unlikely.

Ralph

 

[kylenne]

I always fly JetBlue domestically (not just to MCO) and COVID era is the first time I’ve started to see major changes...my 5/29 flight was originally scheduled to leave at 5:30a but changed to 6:55a. I book as soon as the window opens, which is typically not as far out as the legacy carriers, but again COVID has changed this, it’s much further out than it used to be. The main reason I book so far in advance is because B6 fares to FL tend to only go up with time. Probably because JFK-MCO flights always fly 100% full from my experience, even both of mine last week did.

As far as seating goes, as pp said most do not book seats in advance. And you have to realize many people on legacies are booking those Basic Economy type fares that don’t even allow for it (sadly even B6 hopped on this bandwagon). I always spring for the Even More Space seats solely for front of the plane seating and first crack at the overhead bins, which are precious gold on flights to Disney given all the families and their kid paraphernalia. But even before I started doing that I always chose my seats in advance. It’s the main reason I refuse to fly SW tbh. (The other being their main airport out of NYC is friggin LGA)

 

[Lewisc]

DIS members aren't typical fliers. Most pax book domestic flights less then 60 days in advance. Alot within a week.

Seat maps are meaningless for a variety of reasons.

Make a test reservation then increase the number of pax to the maximum allowed. Does the fare go up to full fare? Airline thinks booking is trending high enough so some pax are expected to pay full fare. Fare is low up to maximum number if pax. Airline might be projecting issues selling out the flight.

 

[_19disnA]

I agree you can't look at seat maps in an attempt to draw conclusions about whether or not a flight might be cancelled. Airlines make money keeping their planes flying to multiple destinations daily. The 1/2 empty flight you might be on could be a sold out flight to its next destination. You have no way to know where your plane might be going for its next trip. Studying seat maps is mostly a waste of time.

Fares tend to be lowest if booked further in advance. Most airlines have multiple price classes for seats and typically the non-stop and/or lowest priced fares sellout first. Then the fare jumps to the next higher category. If they can sell all available seats to popular travel destinations there is less need to offer a sale. If traveling around a major holiday I would book your airfare as soon as you know you are traveling.

Booking at the last minute could result in less desirable travel times (i.e. too early or late) and/or connecting flights vs. non-stops as well as a higher price.

 

[gharter]

All of our flights in April were full. the might have been 1 or 2 seat empty at most. American did not leave any seat vacant intentionally.
there is no good way to be able to tell if a flight will be cancelled or not. we've had flights cancelled that were nearly full and other go with lots of empty seats.

 

[Cheburashka]

We have two flights to Florida this summer - one in a little under a month on United to RSW, one to MCO towards the end of august on Delta both from the NYC area. From the airline seatmap both flights look super empty which is making me worried. I suppose a bunch of the seats could be sold w/o seat assignments, but it doesn't seem like it would be that many.

I always book super early (to the point my husband teases me for it, and always make sure we have seat assignments even if I have to pay extra. But I don't think I'm the norm.

For those of you that have flown recently have you dealt with last minute cancelations / flight consolidations? How far out do you usually book your flights? Do you book seat assignments when you fly?

The legacy airlines (American, Delta, United) routinely change flights around. So if you book them several months in advance, you can reasonably expect that something about your flight will be changed. Usually, they'll just change the time a bit, but sometimes the whole flight is switched. Keep your eyes open for that & if you booked special seating, make sure you maintained those seats when they changed your flights- that doesn't always happen automatically. I remember once seeing how my new flight on American had us in a completely different seating area (not in the extra-charge seat section that I had originally booked and paid extra for), so I called in to have it fixed. The customer service rep asked with a hint of surprise, "So you'd like to sit in that same area?" Um, yeah, duh, that's why I paid extra for it the first time.

I have since made a quality of life decision to only fly first class on legacy airlines, because I just don't want to deal with their hassles as an economy passenger, and just like a PP, I also stopped flying SWA because I always want to sit up front (ear disorder makes sitting near or behind engines a terrible experience) and there is no way to guarantee that on SWA, even if you can do a medical preboard. We usually fly JetBlue to Orlando, and they're better than the legacy airlines about not changing flights as they have a very simple schedule, but at the height Covid there were some changes & cancellations. That was not shocking given the circumstances.

Bottom line: flight changes are common. Out and out cancellations are less common- those are usually weather related. And yes, seat maps don't tell you anything about how full your flight will be. Their only useful purpose is to let you know which specific seats are available for you to reserve.

 

[quoo]

I always expect the flights to shift a bit (although annoyingly our flight back is now quite late) We are actually in first. Hopefully that’ll make it less of a problem. But worried because the other flights that day have full enough first classes that it would be challenging to reaccomadate the 4 of us.

 

[Robbydj13]

I always book southwest and while there is no seat assignments, we will always book the seats that include early boarding or get earlybird check-in for them. We prefer to sit towards the front for no other reason than getting off the plane quicker.
the last few flights I have taken in the last 6 months have all been pretty full so we haven’t had cancellations (knock on wood).