A lesson learned about the current state of the airline industry
I’m writing this post for anyone who may be booking an airfare, not only to Walt Disney World. This is not intended to specifically slam Jet Blue, which is still my preferred airline, but just to make sure all of my readers are prepared for what is happening in the airline industry.
A couple of weeks ago myself, my brother, and my father all booked airfare to and from Orlando for a trip to the Mouse in January of 2009. A few days after the bookings were confirmed, Jet Blue sent notification to all of us that our flight time had changed for the trip there. It wasn’t a big deal because it actually only pushed it forward about 30 minutes earlier. So we all confirmed the change and off we went.
The next day my brother, the observant one, discovered that in that process our seat assignments were somehow lost for the flight back home. I thought it odd, but didn’t think it was anymore than a glitch. So we all went and confirmed it and off we went.
I can only imagine that something just didn’t sit right with my brother, because unlike the rest of us he didn’t just go about life thinking nothing was wrong. Because he soon discovered that not only had they lost our seat assignments for the return flight, but they also moved the time from 7pm all the way up to 11:45am that same day. For those of you who are also Disney World addicts you can immediately see the disaster here. With Magical Express, we would have to leave our hotel at 8:45 in the morning. Instead of having the better part of a day in the park, we now have no time at all. Not acceptable by any means.
What makes this such an annoying story is that the airline never informed us of any of this. All the email said was that our flight down was slightly earlier. They simply failed to mention the bad parts. Thankfully my brother is obsessive compulsive, or we all would have been happy and smiling until we tried to get on a flight home at 7pm that didn’t exist.
These types of cancellations and changes are now par for the course in the airline industry. Thanks to the amazing fuel cost increases, airlines are cutting back many, many flights. Be aware that this could happen to you and make sure you go over each of your itineraries with a fine tooth comb.
Eric said,
July 17, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
Ugh, that stinks. I would have been very upset as well. We always try to do the same thing: arrive early, depart late. Having to leave that early makes that last night resort stay meaningless.
Jennifer said,
July 17, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
I had a phenomenally irritating return from WDW last time too. I’ll spare you the gory/boring details, but the high point was getting a text message at midnight, in my distressed-passenger-rate hotel room at Dulles, letting me know that my 3:45PM United Airlines flight the next day was canceled, and I’d been rebooked on a 7AM flight instead. Good thing I was awake and checking my text messages at midnight, or we wouldn’t have known we had to be on the 5AM airport/hotel shuttle that morning, less than 5 hours away.