We're going to Nashville in a few weeks for my nephew's birthday. My wife is flying out with the kids Thursday to Monday and I'm just going Friday to Aunday. We both got notified that our 430 flights have been canceled and we're now booked on a 2pm flight (United, Iah->BNA). Which is annoying because it cuts into our work days and also complicates things on the other end when we arrive still during the work day.

And our return flights have all changed as well. I had a 7pmish flight out and she had a late afternoon flight. Both now leaving much earlier.

I assume that this is just due to a much lower volume of flights but it's annoying.

I'm seeing it a ton on international flights to Mexico and Caribbean. Essentially it looks like they are consolidating/reducing # of flights. Both legs for my Cancun trip I'm on got changed.

Yep...my son flew United in June and July, and at least one flight was changed, if not both. Flights were to/from IAH and HSV.

He has flights booked on Southwest for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Both Thanksgiving flights have been changed (one was a good change, the other not so good), and I think one of the Christmas flights has been changed. Maybe both, I can't remember. Flights are all to/from HOU and BHM

The "bad" changes are flights that are moved from earlier in the day to an 8 pm or later departure.

The SW changes have been annoying because in one of them, he was rebooked from a nonstop that was cancelled to a flight with a layover on the NEXT day rather than on the new nonstop flight. I called and got it changed, but it was annoying that I had to wait on hold for almost 2 hours rather than change it myself online.

We did fly to from HOU and DEN on SW for the Labor Day weekend, and none of those flights were changed.

FYI if your flight changes more than 2 hours you can get a refund. I think with AA it might be even less time.

JMac03 said:

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FYI if your flight changes more than 2 hours you can get a refund. I think with AA it might be even less time.

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Yeah, I know. I went to battle with United over this in the spring (they did not want to give a refund because my flight did not change by 6 hours or more, even though they changed it from a nonstop to one with a layover).

Anyway, my son has to go see his dad, and he's flying on weekends, so the changes aren't a huge deal. Just an annoyance.

I'm afraid this is what airline travel is going to look like for a while, though.

Same for United to Cancun. Both flights moved.

Booked a Southwest flight in late May for a September trip (Houston to Orlando). They changed my non-stop flight 4 times (each time with 1 or 2 stops). I called each time to shift it to another non-stop (which would eventually get cancelled). I finally picked an early flight in late August and it stuck. It was a bit frustrating.

All of the airlines have laid off thousands of employees since Oct. 1 and these schedules are published months in advance. What you are seeing are airlines now backing down schedules they can't actually operate due to a combination of lower demand and not enough headcount to operate.

In SWA's case, they followed the strategy of publishing full schedules months in advance gambling that we would still not be in a massive COVID slump. It's easier for them to publish full schedules and then trim down rather than go the other direction in case demand returned. Gary Kelley actually talked about this in some interviews.

So far we haven't had anything changed after booking, but I generally book everything 2 weeks out so maybe the juggling has already been done by then.

What I am seeing is that a lot of the regular flights we take are not an option, so they're definitely consolidating . For a lot of cities we've always had 4-5 direct flight options on any given day, and now there are two. One early and one late afternoon.

They know people will book. They need the sales.

We got out Nashville ticket for nothing. I think my wife spent under $300 for her and the kids and my ticket was $116. Booked a few weeks ago to travel in early November (so maybe 5-6 weeks prior to travel). We even got in a little argument because I was sure she was booking economy basic which won't work when traveling with two 4 year olds. But those were regular economy prices.

SoupNazi2001 said:

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I am surprised that airline prices are still pretty high. I was just looking over Christmas and next Spring Break and was surprised at prices on American and Southwest out of Dallas.

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Thats because you picked high demand times. They know some people will still fly during those times and they have less supply because they've dropped so many flights, so they'd rather jack up prices than add a ton of planes.

I've had dirt cheap trips from den to dca, dfw, and kc this month. All around $100/150person. That is not normal at all.

SW starting to change our February flight from Hou to Steamboat Springs. Started connecting in Denver and now connecting in Dallas and our return flight got pushed back an hour from Denver.

Just flew from San Antonio to Key West thru DFW and back on American and never had a schedule change. Flights were PACKED and they were offering vouchers for changing flights.