After looking at the latest numbers for airline cancelations and delays, I wrote this: It’s a mess out there: American, Delta, United, Southwest and other U.S. airlines struggling to cope with severe weather. Unfortunately, today’s (Monday, August 5, 2024) numbers are worse than they were at the same time yesterday.
The culprit has been severe thunderstorms in the northeast and Tropical Storm Debby in the southeast. As of 1pm PT, look at the number of cancelations and delays the airlines are having on the lefthand side of the FlightAware screenshot below.
Not surprisingly, American Airlines (AA) is leading the way since they have hubs in Miami, Charlotte and New York. As of 12:42pm ET, AA has canceled 378 flights and delayed 510. Southwest is a close second with 250 and 576 respectively, followed by Delta with 141 and 410.
I can tell you from experience monitoring flights that these numbers are going to get much worse as it gets later in the day thanks to a domino effect. That’s why most travel experts will advise you to always take the first flight out, even if it means getting up super early. That’s why I dragged my kids out of bed at 3:45am in Naples, Italy last year to take a Lufthansa flight (here’s my review) because we didn’t want to risk missing our connecting flight to North America since I had secured cheap business class tickets. Fortunately, my kids are always up for an adventure!
With so many people traveling, you have to do everything you can to make your flight, which brings up another valuable point. If you have to make a connection, like we did from Naples, then leave plenty of time in between flights. We gave ourselves seven hours between flights and had a little adventure exploring Munich, Germany.
My sister, who plans her travels the opposite of me, flew a couple of weeks ago between Palm Beach, Florida and Erie, Pennsylvania with a connection in Charlotte, North Carolina. She foolishly accepted American Airlines’ connection time of less than an hour.
As you can see from the photo above, there’s no way she could have made her connection. She didn’t and had to wait six hours for the next flight, which she was lucky to get on; I was able to grab the last seat for her (I just happened to be at my computer when she called in a panic). The five other passengers she met on her PBI-CLT flight, who were also going to ERI, weren’t so lucky. They had to fly to Cleveland and rent a car in the middle of the night to make it.
My point is that airline delays and cancelations might be out of your control but you can increase the chances of things going your way by taking an early morning flight, flying direct and leaving plenty of time between connecting flights. And if you really need to be somewhere for something important like a cruise, wedding or other meeting or engagement that just can’t be missed, then fly in a couple of days in advance.
Unfortunately, the troubles the airlines are currently experiencing look like they’re going to continue throughout the week, as they’ve issued multiple travel waivers. Here’s what United Airlines waivers look like, including one that was just released a few hours ago.
East Coast Severe Weather
Travel dates: August 3 – 5, 2024
This travel waiver allows for voluntary changes for travel to, from or through the airports listed. The original travel dates have been extended and now includes Boston.
Airports
- Boston, MA (BOS)
- Baltimore, MD (BWI)
- New York/Newark, NJ (EWR)
- New York-Kennedy, NY (JFK)
- New York-LaGuardia, NY (LGA)
- Philadelphia, PA (PHL)
- Washington, DC – Dulles (IAD)
- Washington-National, DC (DCA)
Tropical Depression 4
United Airlines also issued a travel waiver for Florida, thanks to the tropical depression. This waiver is for today (Monday. August 5):
- Ft. Myers, FL (RSW)
- Key West, FL (EYW)
- Sarasota, FL (SRQ)
- Tampa, FL (TPA)
Tropical Storm Debby
United Airlines also has a travel waiver for the Southeast for today through Wednesday, August 7:
- Charleston, SC (CHS)
- Columbia, SC (CAE)
- Hilton Head Island, SC (HHH)
- Jacksonville, FL (JAX)
- Myrtle Beach, SC (MYR)
- Savannah, GA (SAV)
- Wilmington, NC (ILM)
All of these travel waivers allow for voluntary changes for travel to, from or through the airports listed. I really think today, tomorrow and Wednesday are going to be a mess so if the airline is offering you a waiver and you don’t need to be somewhere, postpone your trip for free (at least the flight portion) while you can. Just do it quickly so you can get a seat on the earliest flight and try to snag a good seat before they all fill up.
Here’s what to do in weather delays and flight cancelations and here’s my advice on how to avoid getting stuck in the middle seat.
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