Has your flight recently been canceled or changed without warning? Here’s why

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — People have increasingly gotten more comfortable with boarding planes and traveling.

In the month of June, Jacksonville Internation Airport saw the highest number of travelers since the new year.

Many are now seeing unexpected flight changes and cancelations with no explanation or warning.

Action News Jax, Dani Bozzini talked with a local travel advisor, Chandlor Harris, who books flights for clients every day.

Harris explains, “some of the flight times have only been a five-minute change, which isn’t a big deal, but some of them have just been completely new flight numbers with a completely new flight schedule. I have a client that’s leaving next month their airfare has changed three times.”

And Harris says it’s not just one specific airline, it’s all of them. A big reason why is due to heightened demand.

“The past two, three months it has picked up a lot.”

Last year during the month of June, roughly 157,000 people flew in and out of Jacksonville.

Fast forward to June 2021, it skyrocketed to nearly 508,000. That’s about a 225% increase.

American Airlines tells Action News Jax in part, “American, like other carriers, makes periodic adjustments to ensure our route network and flight schedule aligns with customer demand.”

So as demand increases, airlines are adding more flights to the mix, and when doing that sometimes previously planned flights are changed.

And we’re told because of COVID-19 those adjustments are being made in a much shorter time frame.

Southwest also says many customers are showing up increasing late for flights, for a lot of different reasons.

And because many flights are very full, the airline chooses to wait for those passengers, causing delays.

It says delays compound and can bring cancelations.

Harris’ best advice right now, “If you want to travel you have to learn to roll with the punches a little more and just kind of go with the flow.”

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