Always check with the airline to confirm your flights

When you book with a third party service like Orbitz or some other online service, always check with the airline about the status of your flight.

Airline: United Airlines, flights 5096 and 5033
Date: 24 December 2009 and 1 January 2010
Location: Round trip Kansas City, MO to Salina, KS


After much planning for the Christmas & New Years holidays, I had a less than pleasant experience on my leg from Kansas City to Salina, Kansas December 24, 2009. Due to inclement weather, my flight #5096 was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day. This
flight was was again cancelled and found that the next actual flight that made it to Salina, Kansas from Kansas City was Saturday night December 26. By the way, my luggage (a new red roller bag) finally showed up filthy at that time. This was a fairly recent purchase also. The only reason I made it to Salina was the kindness of strangers from Pennsylvania that invited me to drive there with them or I would have been stranded.

Before my return flight on January 1, 2010 on United flight #5033, I received a call from the Salina airport December 31 around 5pm indicating that my flight was cancelled due to lack of no one working to fly the plane. I was rescheduled for the same departure time and flight number for January 2, 2010 and again informed by the Salina airport that this flight was cancelled due to lack of no one to fly the plane.

I was rescheduled to fly back on Sunday, January 3rd. This is the "funny part", I even received courtesy calls from Orbitz around 3:30am January 1 saying that my flight from Salina to Kansas City was on time. Another "funny" is that two booking sites that I checked indicated that these flights were still booking passengers for the Friday and Saturday flights that were cancelled.

I work in Customer Service and although I had no problems with the people I dealt with as far as courtesy as they were apologetic, after spending $594.40 for my round trip flight from Michigan to Kansas and not getting the service I paid for and luggage problems and added expenses and inconvenience, I am requesting 2 round trip non-blackout days tickets in the continental US. I feel this is the least I deserve after having to change plans inconveniencing myself and my family.

AirSafe.com Responds
Unfortunately, the US airlines on domestic flights are not required to compensate passengers for canceled flights, late flights, so she would be lucky to get anything out of the airline. She has more hope about compensation for the damaged bag, so long as she can document the condition of the bag before the flight.

While you may get information about a flight from on online service, you should contact the airline directly if you have any questions about your flight, especially for delays and cancellations. If you book a ticket through a non-airline service like Orbitz, you should still check with the airline or the airline's web site for flight information

Photo: Aquila