Flight delays and cancellations are unfortunate inevitabilities, especially in summer, when more people are flying and severe weather tends to occur more frequently.
How can you get your trip back on track when things go frustratingly wrong? Start by reading the fine print before booking, understanding what’s owed to you and being proactive at the airport in asking for what you want. Here’s how to do it.
Download your airline’s app, which often shows an aircraft’s location and also posts timely updates on a flight’s status or gate changes. Updates may appear here before anywhere else.
The day of your flight, you can also scan FlightAware, a flight-tracking service accessible by app and website, to get a sense of delays and cancellations across major airports. Keep an eye on the weather, too.
It can help to know what airlines your carrier partners with, in case you need to be rebooked on another airline. In addition to partnerships like code shares, when an airline operates a flight on behalf of another, or alliances, most airlines also have relationships known as interline agreements that allow them to transfer passengers to flights on other carriers.
This information isn’t always readily available online; experts suggest calling an airline’s customer service for more guidance.
Be aware that if you have a ticket with a low-cost airline, like Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines or Spirit Airlines, you are most likely out of luck: They generally do not rebook on any other carrier.
Go deeper than the dashboard
The Transportation Department’s airline cancellation and delay dashboard is a helpful resource that spells out what 10 of the larger domestic airlines offer passengers. But this dashboard is not your only tool. Customer-service plans for specific airlines (located on their websites, and with links from the D.O.T. dashboard) have further detail about passenger entitlements.
For example, if your United Airlines flight is canceled because of reasons within the carrier’s control, such as understaffing, and you are rerouted to a flight that departs the next day, you are entitled to a voucher for food, a nearby partner hotel and transportation. If a room is not available at the airline’s hotel, and you must find another accommodation, United will reimburse you for “reasonable hotel costs.” There’s nothing on the United customer-service site indicating that food receipts or taxi receipts will be reimbursed.
If a delay or cancellation is…
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