It's very curious. Based on what I'm reading here, it's only Southwest so far. Equally odd, however, was that Southwest announced a couple of days ago that it anticipated flight disruptions, delays and/or cancellations for scheduled flights throughout Florida through September 17. Could be any number of reasons but nothing is clear right now. It doesn't seem to be MCO and the other airlines haven't followed - so it appears to be only a SW issue.
It's rampant speculation on my part (which is exactly what this thread doesn't need anymore of - but I'm at least prefacing it by saying I have no idea what I'm talking about and don't listen to me for facts) - but I wonder if SW has issues with slot allocation at these airports. There'll be a lot of traffic back into these airports when they reopen - a lot of demand and possibly not enough landing/take-off slots available for everyone. I have no idea what the arrangements are here, but the discount airlines can get squeezed by the legacy airlines and airport authorities when these fights come up. Could also just be aftereffects of SW trying to reposition its aircraft after all this. Whatever it is, anyone flying SW into MCO through next Sunday should continue to monitor their flight (per SW's earlier announcement).
There are a lot of factors that could be the cause. They have re positioned a lot of their planes out of Florida to who knows where - now they have to get them back to the starting point.
Slots is defiantly one possibility - especially with the budget airlines.
If their crews are based in Florida they may have a shortage of help - the staff needs to go home after the storm and deal with results of the storm.
Another possibility is they have a couple of flights to Orlando that day - but only enough people to fill one - so they cancel a couple of the flights and everyone re books - so they just saved themselves a bunch of money.
Aer Lingus tried to do something similar to me recently. They canceled two of three flights to Ireland that day because they did not have full planes.
I was actually flying through Ireland to somewhere else - so they called my and told me I would not make my connecting flight and they wanted to put me on a direct Delta flight.
I know that was not true because I've flown this route before...but she was insistent. I then told her if I wanted to fly on Delta I would have booked Delta and saved myself $300 in the fist place.
After a bit of back and fourth I told her that I would keep my flight and if I missed my connecting flight I'd just stay in Dublin - I was coming back to Dublin anyway so it was no big deal.
Long story short - when I got to the Airport I spoke to the women at check-in and she said she was wrong and I would make my flight.
No apology for all the stress this caused the two hours before the flight. I had noticed the other two flights were cancelled and called her on it she laughed and so no we would never do that.
Well yes they would - in the end it is about profit and if it is more profitable to cancel a few flights and mess with people vacations they will - and they will lie to your face.
