You probably know I rarely have good things to say about the commercial airlines, but today’s tip is an exception. It’s a little discovery I made that has saved me countless hours of unnecessary waiting time at the airport and has transformed me into a superhero instead of a helpless victim of delayed and cancelled flights. Here’s how it can do the same for you.
To the best of my knowledge, what I’m about to tell you currently works only with Continental Airlines, but it’s possible that other carriers may also be, or will soon be, onboard. Yes, I’m referring to that Continental Airlines, the target of perhaps the funniest travel post I have ever seen on the Internet.
Ok, back to the tip. How many times has your airline listed your departure as “on-time,” then seemingly minutes before take-off, they change it to “delayed,” sometimes for hours on end?
It has happened to me more times than I’d like to remember, and I find it beyond frustrating, particularly when the airline has knowledge of a pre-existing problem (like the incoming plane being delayed). I have always believed that the airlines don’t update this information too far in advance for fear that business travelers on refundable tickets will switch to a carrier with an earlier flight (which, by the way, is exactly what would happen).
Thankfully, Continental Airlines has partially solved this problem.
Like most airlines, you can check on the status of your flight on the Continental website, and like most airlines, Continental is slow on the trigger to mark your flight as “delayed.” However, unlike all other sites I have surveyed, there is now a link on the Continental Flight Status that says, “Where is this aircraft coming from?” If you click that link, you’ll see the precise arrival status of the aircraft that you are scheduled to fly on. It gets even better: that flight also has the link (and so on), so you can see the status of nearly all of your aircraft’s earlier flights on your day of travel.
Finally, an airline is willing to give me some useful and reliable information on the likelihood my flight is actually going to be on time!
Just a week ago, I was heading down for a Florida golf vacation story on TPC Sawgrass. Utilizing this little trick, I learned that my 8:30 p.m. flight first had to land, and then depart, a snowy O’Hare Airport in Chicago before making its way to me in Newark, N.J. Seeing that the earlier Chicago flights were experiencing delays, I grabbed an earlier flight on Continental and avoided what turned into a more than four-hour flight delay. (Yes, I am that kind of person who had to check to see if the $25 standby fee had paid off.)
So often, when one airline does something new or different, the others follow. Let’s hope that trend continues with regard to this helpful info. Let me know if you’ve found other airlines (or websites) that currently provide it. In the meantime, you may be interested in some of my previous air travel tips that included suggestions for finding the best airline fares, securing the best airline seats, and how to get first class fights for the price of coach.
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