Flight Delay and Cancellation

Scroll to the end for my personal craziest airport delay/cancellation story!

Have you flown anywhere recently? Were you a victim of a delay or cancellation? It seems like almost everyone I know has been in one of these situations this year, including myself. So, what do you do if this happens to you? Here are my top tips.

Make sure you are signed up for text and/or email alerts from the airline. This is the fastest way to get any updates on changes to your flights.

You need to be proactive for yourself.

The last two times my flights were canceled, the notification I got (from American Airlines, just for reference), told me they were working on rebooking me. This is basically untrue. If you wait, you are going to potentially miss out on seats and you will be waiting a long time. 

So what should you do?

If the airline you are using has an app, go there and see if you can rebook on your own. You can also sign in to manage your reservation via a web browser. This is sometimes an option, but not always. If you aren’t seeing anything, move on to another next step quickly.

I also recommend calling the airline. If there are major delays everywhere, the wait time is going to be long so you will need to get in the queue as early as possible. If you are not quick with your phone or apps, put the call in first, then start checking other options as you wait on hold.

If you are already at the airport, I recommend doing these things while you are in line for a customer service desk or gate agent. You can always get out of line if you get rebooked another way while you are waiting.

You can also try utilizing the chat feature on the app or website if your airline has one (American Airlines has one…it is found under “Contact Us”). This is often faster than waiting for a phone agent, but the phone agent or agent at the airport is going to be able to do the most for you.

Be patient. Everyone is frustrated, but yelling at someone is not going to get you to your destination faster. Packing your patience at the airport is always a good idea, but especially in a situation where delays and cancellations are happening. The airlines want to get you to your destination, believe me. I have seen it all on my travels and the people who show some grace and kindness usually get better outcomes more quickly than the ones who are yelling at gate agents who are not the ones responsible for your delay.

BONUS: Story Time!

Just for fun, here is my craziest delay/cancellation story to date. This is from May 2024 when severe weather/tornadoes were affecting Dallas, TX. I kept a little chronicle of my adventure. Enjoy!

My Crazy Flight Day: I Guess I Live in the Dallas  Airport Now

I was flying home from a girls weekend in Pigeon Forge, TN and was on a 5am flight to Dallas that should have gotten me home around 11:30am. I was up at 2am Central time in order to get to the airport since it was a bit of a drive. Security went quickly (even after having my bag stopped and getting a lecture from TSA about my sunscreen bag…that's a story for another day) and the plane even left a few minutes early. Fast forward to a couple hours later…I turned my phone back on after we landed and discovered I had been rerouted to Houston and my flight from Dallas to home was canceled because of weather. There were several other aircrafts that had been rerouted to Houston so there were no gates. We sat on the tarmac while they tried to figure out what to do. Spoiler alert: I ended up spending 7 hours total on that plane. I could have flown to Europe in that amount of time.

I had called American Airlines from the plane and rebooked myself on the 9pm flight home from Dallas instead. I figured that even if I had to get off the plane in Houston, I could at least rent a car and drive to Dallas since it was only 10am at the time. 

Airlines are required to give you an update every 30 minutes when you are stuck like this. Most of them were about still waiting to find us a gate. If you are on the tarmac for 2 hours, they have to start working on emergency measures to get you off the plane. We were getting pretty close to that time frame.

However, they finally got the all clear that Dallas opened back up. They found us a gate, filled us up with gas and sent us off.

As I was sitting there and knew we were getting to Dallas within an hour or two, a 3pm flight from Dallas opened up and I grabbed it, so I was hopeful I would be home around 5pm.

Side story: the kid in the window seat next to me was so out of it he had no idea we landed in Houston and had been sitting there for 2 hours. He asked me why they did the safety presentation again when they were sending us off to Dallas and I had to explain it to him. We were waiting to get off the plane and that is when he told me he was a minor and didn't have any of his information besides a boarding pass and no one had contacted him about his next flight. I told him to check for it on the board outside and if he didn't see anything to find someone who worked for American Airlines to help him out. I maybe should have done the mom/teacher thing and made sure he had help, but I wasn't really with it right then due to exhaustion, hunger, and lack of caffeine. I had slept through snack and beverage service and I had eaten my last snack and drank my whole bottle of water. They didn't give us anything on the plane during the time on the tarmac.

If you have ever been to DFW, you know it is a huge airport. They do have a Skylink system that connects the terminals. Naturally, I needed more chaos in my day (please read that with a sarcastic tone) so here is the wild goose chase I went on: Landed in C. Had to go to A. But I went to D to try to use the Lounge since I was starving and free food is appealing. It was full. Went to A. Changed me to B. Then I was starving so I ate lunch at basically the closest place I saw and then went to B. Got Starbucks because I only ordered water at lunch due to being so thirsty. Then they changed it back to C. So I just sat in B because I was tired of running all over the airport, drank my coffee and answered some emails since I still had 90 minutes for them to change their minds again. It didn't change again after that.

These pulled pork nachos were amazing. I am not sure if they were really that good of if I was just really hungry!

My flight kept getting delayed as I was sitting there. I didn't eat dinner since I had thought I would be home by 5. Grabbed a snack during the delay. They announced the crew was landing at 4pm so we would board as soon as they get to our gate. We just kept waiting. I wondered if they got stuck on the tarmac because a guy that stopped next to me said he sat out there for 2 hours. Turns out they did sit on the tarmac.

Finally got on the plane and sat down next to a couple other very relieved people. They were headed to Des Moines for work. However, as we were boarding the plane, I got a text notification that our gate had changed. They didn’t stop loading the plane, though, so I got on and found my seat. I sat for less than 5 minutes. Then they made us get off the plane because the plane had to overnight somewhere and since it was no longer coming back to DFW from DSM like it was supposed to, we couldn't take that plane. They had another one for us, but it is supposed to leave at 7pm and is at the other end of the terminal.

So we all walked to the new gate and there were a ton of people standing around. The board at the gate said San Antonio. The app tells me we are leaving at 7:12 from that gate. As we were walking there, we heard another gate announce that a flight to Cedar Rapids was supposed to leave from the same gate they just told us to go to. 

The gate agent announced there were 2 planes needing this gate but didn't give us an update beyond that because they also didn’t have any informaton. It was still showing San Antonio on the screen, but the app said we were supposed to be leaving at 7:32. It is 6:58. There were 3 flights worth of people standing at the same gate. It was very crowded and the energy was high due to no one really knowing what was going on and the general chaos from the day. I ended up getting a burger from Chili's To Go while I was standing there and it was the right decision since I hadn’t eaten. I also discovered I could sit on my suitcase for a bit and it was actually pretty comfortable. The plane at the gate was announced to be ours and they sent the other people to a new gate.

We finally boarded the plane, but when I got on I noticed it was the same flight crew from the first plane they loaded us on and off. Keep in mind, this flight crew was supposed to be on our 3pm flight and had come from a flight prior to ours. Boarding was pretty much done when they came over the speaker and told us they realized the crew was going to time out during the flight so we all had to get off the plane since they couldn't take us. Frustrations were high and I started texting my friends and family that I apparently lived in the Dallas airport now since it looked bleak for actually getting home. The app wasn't showing any flights to rebook myself for, either.

So, we got off the plane. Again. I decided to get in line to talk to the gate agent because they just kept delaying the flight by 30 minutes saying they were trying to find a new crew (side note: this is how they avoid having to give you a refund…they keep delaying instead of outright canceling. I am grateful for the new law going into effect that forces them to refund you when certain conditions are met. There wasn't a magical crew waiting to take us that late at night. They ended up canceling the flight after midnight.) I told the agent I was willing to go anywhere with a couple hour drive of home and ended up on the best available option at the time, which was a 4:45pm flight to Omaha the next day. My husband said he would drive the 2 hours to pick me up. I was comped a hotel, taxi, and a $12 food voucher and headed to my hotel around 10pm.

The hotel was fine. I got to sleep in a bed after being up for about 22 hours and they had a decent hot continental breakfast for not a lot of money and gave me a to go coffee.

Since I didn't have anything else to do, I went back to the airport early to see if I could maybe get on an earlier flight. The AA customer service line was not terribly long in the B terminal (it was SO long in the C terminal) so I waited. I got put on standby for the earlier flight to Omaha and somehow ended up as the first person on the list.

I went to the Capital One Lounge for a bit for some free food because (surprise) my flight got delayed and I still hadn't been cleared off standby. I am a Skylink transportation pro after all my gate changes yesterday, so it was no big deal to go back and forth to a different terminal.

I ended up clearing standby and got a lovely upgraded seat on the plane with no one in the middle seat. It was a relief to get back to the Midwest, especially since there were more weather delays in Dallas the following day. I am glad I didn't have to actually live in the Dallas airport, but I am actively avoiding flying through there for the foreseeable future. 

Follow up: I did fly through the Dallas airport a couple of weeks ago. It was not my choice and was the only option to get me to my destination because yes, I experienced yet another canceled flight. We fortunately did not experience any delays and we made it, so maybe it has been redeemed.

Do you have any crazy airport stories?