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What I don’t understand in situations like this when thousands of flights are cancelled is how do they catch up? It always seems like flights are at max capacit

What I don’t understand in situations like this when thousands of flights are cancelled is how do they catch up? It always seems like flights are at max capacity at all times, at least when I fly. If they cancel 1,000 flights in one day, how do they absorb that extra volume and get everyone where they need to be? Surely a lot of people have their plans permanently cancelled?

CamelCaseName 3y ago
There's always some empty capacity, whether it's non-rev tickets for flight crew and their families which are lower priority than paying customers or people who miss their flights. I had a cancelled flight recently and they booked people two weeks out because every flight from that day onward was full or nearly full. I showed up the next morning and was able to board the next flight because exactly one person had scanned in their boarding pass (was present at the airport) but did not show up for whatever reason to the airplane. Beyond that, people just make alternate plans, whether it's taking a bus or taxi home, traveling elsewhere, picking another airline, anything is possible.
thedrbrian 3y ago
You don't. I work in logistics for a FMCG company and sometimes our main producer goes down and we run out of certain types of stock. We send as much out as we can and cancel the rest. If they really want the stock the customers can rebook an order for tomorrow because they aren't getting it today. And we just start adding extra stock to each delivery. It's the best of a bad situation. We don't have the money to have extra trucks and very perishable stock laying about and I know the airlines don't pay 300 grand a month to lease a 737 just to have it sat about doing nothing. There's very little slack.
deleted 3y ago
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bdamm 3y ago
Exactly. People's plans get pushed out into the evenings or during the less busy times, absorbed, then forgotten as collateral damage.

CamelCaseName 3y ago

There's always some empty capacity, whether it's non-rev tickets for flight crew and their families which are lower priority than paying customers or people who miss their flights. I had a cancelled flight recently and they booked people two weeks out because every flight from that day onward was full or nearly full. I showed up the next morning and was able to board the next flight because exactly one person had scanned in their boarding pass (was present at the airport) but did not show up for whatever reason to the airplane. Beyond that, people just make alternate plans, whether it's taking a bus or taxi home, traveling elsewhere, picking another airline, anything is possible.

thedrbrian 3y ago

You don't. I work in logistics for a FMCG company and sometimes our main producer goes down and we run out of certain types of stock. We send as much out as we can and cancel the rest. If they really want the stock the customers can rebook an order for tomorrow because they aren't getting it today. And we just start adding extra stock to each delivery. It's the best of a bad situation. We don't have the money to have extra trucks and very perishable stock laying about and I know the airlines don't pay 300 grand a month to lease a 737 just to have it sat about doing nothing. There's very little slack.

deleted 3y ago

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bdamm 3y ago

Exactly. People's plans get pushed out into the evenings or during the less busy times, absorbed, then forgotten as collateral damage.