Anyone have a change in travel dates due to FAA changes?

[pattytrish]

Hey all,

We were originally booked May 7th thru May 14th - our travel agent just called to tell us that due to FAA changes - our booking dates changed to May 5th thru May 12th. Anyone else have this happen?

On a another note - we are so excited to experience Jamaica! This will be our first trip. We are traveling with another couple and they will be showing us the ropes. They have been to Couples many many times. Hoping to have a relaxing enjoyable trip!

trish

[jagorham]

FAA changes? That sounds bogus to me -- unless the FAA pulled the license of an airline (and that might have happened if it's one of these "scheduled charter" lines). What airline were you supposed to be flying on?

[pattytrish]

Hey jagorham!

I agree it sounds bogus to me too! Travel agent made all arrangements - not sure what airline. We booked it almost a year ago.

[LifeLoveEnergy]

I hope not. We have my parents coming in from another state to babysit. Our dates have to be locked.

[jagorham]

I'm just guessing here, but I'm betting the agent is just now putting the air package together. If it's a smaller airport, the airlines (or, more likely, airline) has changed service and gummed things up. Not that it wouldn't have changed anything in your situation, but it's more an airline issue than the FAA.

What airport are you flying out of? (I assume the agent told you that?)

And, at this point, I'd start barking at the agent and want specifics -- if they've moved the date, then they know what flights they're using, and should be able to tell you. And, three months out, they should know what's available.

[smroot]

FAA does not change travel dates. An action against an airline might cause a change in travel dates, but that would be very highly unlikely. I think I would be doing a little more checking. From past experience my guess is the Travel Agent messed up somehow, and that is why the travel dates changed. Just not an FAA action.

[mkate44]

We are having a similar problem, went to our travel agent today and she said there was a problem with our trip. We booked for April 16-23, about 6 mos ago, today she said that Funjet no longer does monday-monday flights!! So that left us with the option of doing a monday flight with a layover(we had booked a direst flight) or to leave 2 days earlier and return 2 days earlier from Saturday-saturday. That was fine, but now she called to say that couples negril does not have rooms available for us if we go two day earlier!! I am not very happy. The only thing she said she could do for us is give us a $100 voucher for a future trip with funjet, well thats not an option since we will not be booking with funjet in the future after all of us. Or we could stay at a different resort for the first 2 days, but most likely other resorts would be full also!! We are getting married at couple negril April 19, so i am not very happy about all this confusion!!!

[Wally]

You need to find a new (and honest) travel agent. They are obviously lying, probably trying to cover up their oewn mistake.

[Tara_Y]

I had found out last week that the charter we were supposed to take (out of St Louis) stopped doing flights the day we were going to leave, so we had to either change the days we were going (which wasn't much of an option due to work schedules and this being our honeymoom) or find another flight. our agent found us a pretty good flight with a short layover, and we'll get to the resort at about the same time we were going to get there originally.

She said the charter flight schedules get changed sometimes, and the airlines just don't really care about the people they are screwing over. I freaked out for a few days, but she took care of us and I'm sure our honeymoon to CSA will be amazing! 72 days to go!!!!

[jagorham]

As with Tara _Y's experience, I suspect this is due to a charter flight company's change (not an FAA thing). Even regular airlines somethine jiggle schedules around and mess things up, but usually they can make it right - though it might be more difficult, say, if you're flying from the West Coast and the connections are somewhat limited. Charters, though, seem to be more a live-by-the-sword thing -- they may save money and often provide a direct flight, but if they want to change the flights, you're on your own about the consequences.

[Captain Jim]

As with Tara _Y's experience, I suspect this is due to a charter flight company's change (not an FAA thing). Even regular airlines somethine jiggle schedules around and mess things up, but usually they can make it right - though it might be more difficult, say, if you're flying from the West Coast and the connections are somewhat limited. Charters, though, seem to be more a live-by-the-sword thing -- they may save money and often provide a direct flight, but if they want to change the flights, you're on your own about the consequences.

Another problem with charters is that if the plane breaks-down on the day of the flight they don't have another one to replace it with. On any IMPORTANT (like a honeymoon) trip I advise my clients not to take a charter unless price is the main deciding factor.
Charters can save you money but they are very risky......

[Fluffin]

I completely agree with Captain Jim! We had a charter flight going to San Andres Island South America a couple years ago. This charter was leaving from Toronto and was nonstop to SAI. Everything had been booked several months in advance including our flights from Delaware to Toronto Canada at the cost of $500.00.

About 3 weeks before departure we received a call from the TA saying the departure date ha changed from a Saturday to Monday. WHAT? Our option was to get a total refund or go with scheduled air and rebook the resort at normal cost. We had gotten a sweet deal at a group rate.

We had to pay for extra nights at the hotel in Canada and pay a change fee for Air Canada for the flights from DE to TO.

IMO & IME charter flights are good if you are booking last minute since all of their last minute changes have been made, other then that I will go with scheduled air. Even with scheduled air I try not to book to far in advance.

[Tara_Y]

That is all very good informati0n, thanks so much for sharing! I had no idea charters could be so risky, that is great to know for future vacations. And I will try to think of this as a blessing now that we are using a larger airline, I never thought about what would happen if a charter breaks down, or what I would have done if they had made the changes much closer to our scheduled honeymoon!

With as much as I freaked out 3 months in advance, had our TA called a few weeks before the wedding I would have lost my mind for sure!

[priceylady]

Tara_Y,

We to are travelling out of St. Louis to Atlanta for a lay over then to Jamaica and I am getting married in 73 days. We are leaving 4/29 coming home on 5/6. I have not heard from my agent with any travel
problems. Please share more of your story.
priceylady

[priceylady]

we are flying transair???

[Tara_Y]

Tara_Y,

We to are travelling out of St. Louis to Atlanta for a lay over then to Jamaica and I am getting married in 73 days. We are leaving 4/29 coming home on 5/6. I have not heard from my agent with any travel
problems. Please share more of your story.
priceylady

Priceylady-
We booked our trip through our travel agent, and originally had a nonstop flight through some charter company, I think SunAirlines or something like that. We booked last summer, and are headed out April 23rd. Found out last week the airline won't fly out on Mondays any more, so our agent found us a flight on American Airlines that leaves the 23rd still and has a short layover in Charlotte. At first we were bummed that we had a layover, but it's nice that it's short (I think only a half-hour or so) and that it's at a smaller airport.

If you haven't heard from your TA, I'm sure your fine. Sounds like our charter company just changed their schedule, but luckily our travel agent (at TravelHaus in St Louis) was WONDERFUL and worked her butt off to get us this other flight. Thankfully there was no changes in cost (don't know if that's because we got the travel insurance or not....)
I must say at the time, getting a call from the agent saying our flight no longer existed was QUITE upsetting, but everything's good now. Cannot WAIT to be on that beach!!!!