This is a great question, because I’ve wondered it myself for quite awhile. This gave me the chance to reach out there and see if I could get any more detail. Sure enough, I could. Let’s start with the question.

. . . I booked my tickets last week and got an interesting email from the online travel service this week that my return flights had been changed by the airline. The departure and arrival times were changed by 1-3 minutes, for the most part making the flights a bit longer. For example, my departure from Buffalo was changed from 4:30 to 4:27 (or it might have been the other way around).

Why would Delta make such small changes to the flights? I’m a private pilot and come from a family of pilots, so I’m familiar with airspeed versus ground speed, but there’s no way they can predict the weather nearly two months out; and I know about flying at maximum economical speed as opposed to maximum possible speed, so I’m wondering if the rising fuel prices have caused them to adjust their speeds a bit to save fuel. But that is just a wild guess.
Perry

This happens on all airlines, but I’ve certainly noticed it happening more frequently on Delta than others. You think your flights are all set and then you get a schedule change notice saying that the arrival time has moved by a minute or two. Why the heck are they doing this?

I went to Delta for the official response and was told this:

. . . when the schedule is first published, it’s not operationally sequenced, so small adjustments are made on certain routes – basically massaging the departure and arrival times slightly for the best operational efficiency and connectivity. As your reader noted, these are minor, a minute here and there.

In other words, when Delta first puts the schedule out there, it’s not perfectly timed to fit into the entire system. Little tweaks of a minute or two can make a difference. That sounds really nebulous, so let me try to fill in the blanks.

A schedule is put out there nearly a year in advance. Often, that won’t be the final expected schedule. Major tweaks happen along the way, but the big ones are usually done when you’re a few months out. There might be some new routes added since the schedule was first put out there. Some routes could be cut, frequencies could change, etc. So at a large airline like Delta, when the schedule firms up, they might find that tweaks of a minute or two on other routes can help.

There are a few other reasons I can think of that would make this worth doing. Look at it through the eyes of the reservation system. This is more of a small change than a big one, but let’s say that Delta flies from Buffalo to Tampa via Atlanta and it takes 4h32m. Then let’s say that US Airways can get you there in 4h30m. If there are a lot of people that fly that route, it might make sense for Delta to find a way to shave 3 minutes off the connection time. That could make it the fastest way to get from Buffalo to Tampa and it could actually have an impact on bookings. Of course, you only do this for larger markets.

There is also the issue of weather. Airlines use historical weather patterns to determine how long flights will take. For example, winds are much stronger in the winter than the summer, so a flight from JFK to LAX is scheduled to take longer in the winter. It’s possible that as weather data comes in, the airlines make slight changes to adjust to the new expectations.

The last reason I can think of for this is simply one of airport issues. Let’s say that Buffalo has construction going on this winter. Delta might want to lengthen the expected flight times to account for the potential ground delays, even if it’s just a few minutes.

I’m sure we have some readers who know more about this than I, so feel free to chime in below.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m working on clearing out some of the Ask Cranky question that have been piling up for awhile here. This is a great question that has probably confused people for ages. I’ll give my best answer, but I encourage customer service reps to chime in if things are different at their airline.

When I get saddled with a middle seat on a transatlantic or other long flight, my 6 foot 1 inch, 225 pound frame starts to ache before I even go through security. When I beg at check-in for a better seat assignment, why are they powerless? They always tell me to see the “gate agent” which, sometimes, is the exact same person. Is it because once the flight has closed they will have a better sense of what they can do?

Derrick M

There can be a couple of reasons why a ticket counter agent would push you off to the gate agent, one sensible and one obnoxious. Fortunately, the sensible one is far more likely.

Just think about what goes into getting a flight out from the perspective of a gate agent. Up until the day of the flight, some people have chosen seats while others have not. Airlines will usually hold back a chunk of seats for the day of departure anyway, so many people can’t get seats in advance even if they tried. Then of course there are the seats that are held back for elite members. Those same elite members are likely to get upgraded, so the seats in coach can become available when they get moved up to the pointy end up of the plane.

There are a lot of moving parts, so to help control the chaos as departure nears, the airline will put these flights “under airport control.” This prevents all different kinds of people from sticking their fingers in and making life difficult for the agents who actually have to get the flight out of the gate. So when you get to the gate, there are a lot of different things going on. Upgrades will be cleared and gate agents will try to help families sit together who have been split apart, for example. Then there are just the people who want to sit in a different seat from what they already have assigned. It can be a gigantic puzzle that’s difficult in its own right.

Now imagine trying to solve that puzzle while it’s in motion. Yeah, that sucks. So when the gate agents take control of a flight, they have the ability to make changes without worrying about others poking their noses in there as well. And that’s the sensible reason for having you talk to the gate agent.

What’s the obnoxious reason? There might not be any good seats left and if the agent is having a bad day, he might just want to push you off on someone else so he doesn’t have to deal with it. Yes, that does happen from time to time, but the sensible reason is far more likely.

For this Ask Cranky, I’m heading to the comments section. That’s right, this comment was posted a couple weeks ago and I thought it was worth bring it to the forefront here. Many know that there are strong European passenger protections, but not many know exactly what they do. So, let’s dig in.

Four of us travelled from Newark to Paris on Open Skies Airlines this month. The flight was delayed from 6.40 p.m. to about 11 p.m. and consequently we missed our next flight from Paris to Edinburgh on Easy Jet and had to purchase new tickets. Open Skies is offering us each $65 vouchers on future flight with them.
Since we do not routinely fly transatlantic, I have told them that there offer is not sufficient for our inconvenience and added expenses. Under the new EU Regulation 261/2004 are we entitled to compensation?

Arlene

First, to answer the immediate question here. No, sorry Arlene, but you aren’t technically entitled to any compensation. You would have had to buy two separate tickets since Open Skies and easyJet wouldn’t have an agreement in place. That can save a lot of money, but it also relieves the other airline from having to give you any compensation due to a missed connection. In addition, EU Regulation 261/2004 (pdf) does not offer compensation for delays. But it does offer a lot, and some of it makes very little sense. So let’s look at it.

This rule applies if you’re bumped, canceled, or delayed. It only applies to passengers departing from a European Union member state or flying to an EU state on an EU-based airline if the originating country doesn’t already have protections in place. It applies to anyone holding a confirmed reservation (including frequent flyer tickets) who arrives at the airport with adequate time and does everything as required to board the flight.

If an airline has an oversold flight and can’t find enough volunteers, it has to involuntarily bump passengers and there are specific compensation rules. That same compensation applies if a flight is simply canceled. In these cases, the passenger is entitled to the following:

There are a couple exceptions here. For example, if another flight can be found that gets the passenger to the destination soon after the original time, then compensation is reduced or eliminated depending on the instance. There is also an interesting little stipulation that says;

An operating carrier shall not be obliged to pay compensation . . . if it can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

This doesn’t apply for simple weather cancellations. In fact, I believe that some are even saying this doesn’t apply to the volcano earlier this year. If that’s the case, then this statement is apparently meaningless.

Now, that compensation amount is just flat compensation regardless of what the passenger decides to do with the flight. If the passenger doesn’t want to travel, he is entitled to a refund. If the passenger can’t get another flight for awhile, he’s entitled to food and hotel as appropriate. That last piece also applies to delays.

The delay rule itself says that passengers are entitled to food, hotel, etc regardless of the reason for delay if the delay is anywhere from 2 to 4 hours using the same distance breakdown as shown in the compensation table above. If the delay passes five hours, then the customer can walk away and get a full refund.

And that’s the gist of the rule. My only problem is that these things apply to flights even if the problems are outside the airline’s control. It makes little sense to me that if a flight is canceled because there’s a storm over the airport, that airlines should have to shell out hundreds of euros. That’s the sort of incentive that encourages airlines to fly unsafely. But this is the rule, so now you now what applies to your flights.

Here’s an Ask Cranky question from a time long ago. Bereavement fares. Everyone knows about them, but are they any good?

I’d love to see you do a post on how bereavement fares have evolved (or not evolved) over the year. Back when I was skinny and had hair, and there were really only four classes of fares: F, FN, Y and YN, the bereavement fares gave a pretty dependable discount on the Y and YN fares. Now, with fares being an absolute alphabet soup, how to the majors and LCCs handle bereavement fares? I know when I did a short stint as an Alaska Airlines res clerk, I could usually beat the heck out of the bereavement fare – but that too, was a long time ago.

Frank V

There’s no question that times have changed. Back in the day, bereavement fares provided a tangible discount over the prevailing rate. The reason for this was simply compassion. People didn’t ever want to take those trips, but they had to and the airlines did what they could to make it a little easier.

As the industry’s fare structure changed and low cost carriers brought lower last minute fares, bereavement fares started to become irrelevant. Oh, they still gave a discount off the full fare. It’s just that nobody paid the full fare anymore.

For low cost carriers, bereavement fares don’t exist for the most part. Southwest, for example, doesn’t offer bereavement fares. Other airlines have varying policies.

American – The website offers a very terse suggestion that bereavement fares may be offered and you need to call them for info. They tend to use an older school approach with flat rates that are very flexible. It tends not to be very helpful.

Continental – They realized that the old model wasn’t helping anyone, so they switched to something new. Now, tickets up to $500 get a 5% discount, tickets between $500 and $1000 get a 10% discount, and tickets over $1000 get a 20% discount.

Delta – They offer a lot more information on bereavement fares on their website but it’s the same end result as American.

United – Like Continental, United has gone with a discount structure, but they’ve opted for simplicity. You can get 10% off any ticket.

As you can see, some of these are good and some bad, but they’re all a pain in the butt. You’re only allowed to take advantage of this for close family members, and each airline has a list of what that includes. You need to provide documentation as well. If someone is sick, you need to give medical contact information so the airline can confirm that this is real. In case of death, you’ll often be asked for the death certificate. It’s not a fun experience. In fact, it’s unpleasant enough to have been a subject of a Seinfeld episode.

But the fares are still out there. They’re just not easy to take advantage of.

I’ve got a nice big backlog of Ask Cranky posts, and I thought this would be a good time to starting clearing that out. Today, we’re talking consolidators.

Can you do a piece on consolidators/consolidator fares? It’s probably the largest aspect of the industry that I’m in the dark about. I’d like to see something with a bit of depth. How do they work? Why do they even exist? At the basic level, I understand that they buy blocks of tickets at a discount. But why can’t the airline just sell them through their own systems with whatever restrictions they want? Are all online agencies consolidators? If not, how can you tell? When are they just fronts for the same thing you can buy directly from the airline? Are there any real differences between Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Cheapoair, and others that I’ve forgotten?

Dan L

Ah yes, consolidators. It’s sort of the mystery of the travel world for many people. They have this reputation as being amazing sources of cheap fares, but how can you find them? Are they reliable? What’s the catch? Let’s get started.

For you as a traveler, when you hear about consolidators, bucket shops, and wholesalers, it means the same thing. Discounted airfare. You’ll have the best luck finding these on international routes, in particular in premium cabins, and you can save a lot of money.

For example, we had a Cranky Concierge client who recently needed to fly from Chicago to Hong Kong in business class. American was showing an option on its website for $9,000 roundtrip. We found those same flights on Webjet.com for a mere $3,500 roundtrip. Yeah, big difference.

There are a couple things to keep in mind about these fares. Yes, you can save a ton but there are nearly always additional restrictions. The change fee on this, for example, is $400 plus a $50 Webjet fee, so it’s not entirely flexible. Any changes are required to go through the agency and not the airline, so that can cause issues while you’re traveling. Often you won’t be able to earn miles on cheap seats like these either.

In this particular case, the deal appears to be that Webjet isn’t even allowed to show the airline name. It simply says “Major Airline.” Of course, it’s easy to figure out since it shows flight numbers and flight times. Not hard to put two and two together.

Often the biggest question about something like this is . . . why? The idea is that airlines can find non-traditional outlets to help sell seats that they wouldn’t have sold otherwise. Go to your nearest Chinatown and you’ll find great deals on flights to China at bucket shops around the area. That’s the best way to reach a large audience that can help fill your airplanes. In many places, this is the way they book travel every time.

With the web, things have become more complicated. Cheap fares are offered to the world as soon as they go online, so you would think that this practice would disappear. But it still continues, likely as a legacy of the past. There are good deals to be found, for sure.

But how do you know if these guys are reputable? It’s a lot easier now in the world of e-tickets. Pay with a credit card and as soon as it’s booked, go directly to the airline to check on your reservation. If all looks good, then you’re set. If not, then you can immediately dispute it with your card.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you aren’t necessarily dealing with a consolidator directly. Consolidators will often sell to travel agents, so you can buy fares through retail agents who get the fares through consolidators and you’ll never know the name.

Some places only sell consolidator fares. If you go to Airfare.com, for example, you’ll see that there are very few options given. That’s because published fares aren’t shown. Others just mingle the fares shown, as you’ll see on a site like Travelocity or Expedia. You wouldn’t know if it was a consolidator fare or not at first blush.

I’ve had good luck with Airfare.com, Webjet.com, Cheapoair, and others in the past. You can also go to a travel agent to do the legwork for you, or to Cranky Concierge, of course. In the end, it’s worth checking out because it can save you a lot.