A Tough Summer for Air Travel to Walt Disney World?

SUMMER DISNEY WORLD AIR TRAVEL

The airlines have reduced capacity over the course of the recession.  This means higher fares, and more planes that are full, or almost full.

Full planes are a tough problem in the summer.

This is because summer thunderstorms historically lead to a spike in cancelled flights. When flights are already full, it’s very hard to get re-booked onto another flight if yours is cancelled—because so few seats are available on other flights.

MAKING AIR TRAVEL TOUGHER

New this summer are new federal rules on airport delays.  These may have a good long term effect on air travel.  In the short term—that is, this summer—they will lead to even more cancellations.

The new rules are meant to address the problem of planes sitting on runways for hours on end.  For more details, see Scott McCartney’s article in the Wall Street Journal last week. (Scott is also the author of  The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel.)

As Scott notes, the new rules require people to get the chance to get off a plane after a three hour wait away from the boarding gate.  If people are not offered this opportunity, fines are staggering—according to McCartney, as high as $27,000 per passenger. 

This is on the order of 50 times the average ticket.

The incentive for airlines?  To do everything they can to comply…and if they think that there is almost any chance at all that they won’t be able to, to cancel the flight. 

The presence of new rules does nothing to increase gate capacity, decrease air traffic holds, open up landing slots, or make storms and other weather-related causes of air traffic disruption to go away. 

What the new rules in fact do is give airlines a stunningly strong incentive to cancel flights.

While it’s a little more complicated than this, since the fine is 50 times the revenue from the flight…you would almost never risk the fine, but rather cancel the flight instead.  For example, if you think there are only three chances in a hundred that you will get fined…you cancel. 

As a result, the normal difficulties of summer travel—thunderstorm related delays and cancellations—are worsened by full planes, and made even worse by an even higher cancellation rate from the new rules.

It is perhaps for this reason that McCartney quotes an airline CEO as calling the new rule “very stupid.”

WHAT TO DO

• Schedule your flights so that you arrive as early in the day as you can…since thunderstorms peak in the late afternoons
• Plan for your trip to be a day or so longer than you otherwise would—so that if you lose a day in travel, you won’t lose as of your time at Walt Disney World
• Bring the 800 number for your airline’s reservations.  If your flight is canceled, often you can re-book faster by calling this number than by waiting in line for staff at the airport to help you
• If you are making a connection, pick out some back-up hotels in your connecting city and bring their names, addresses and phone numbers with you.  This way if you get stuck there overnight you can call them directly, bypassing the crowds trying to get airline help with booking rooms.  (Airlines don’t pay for extra costs you incur from weather-related delays and cancellations—you pay those.)
• If you can drive or take the train to Walt Disney World, do so!

For more on air travel to Walt Disney World, see this and this.