This is a busy travel week for families taking advantage of the annual fall break for teacher conferences, better known as MEA weekend. So, kids, remember to pack a map of the United States. You might need to show it to some grown-ups if your flight gets rerouted.
Anybody else notice that those "change in your itinerary" e-mails are getting less subtle? Used to be hard to figure out what the change was; maybe a flight number or departure moved up or back by a minute. No longer.
I can deal with a nonstop flight from Minneapolis to Kansas City shifting from an 8 a.m. to a 6 a.m. departure.
But now we're going through Denver? The Denver in Colorado?
The airline's customer service representative was well-trained and genuinely empathetic when I called for a quick confirmation of how the United States is laid out. Apparently, I wasn't her only caller. She promised me a full refund if I preferred a more direct route, and wished me well as I scrambled to find two affordable seats on another airline that, for the moment, was going from Midwest City A to Midwest City B without skirting the Rocky Mountains.
I know. I shouldn't complain. Air travel remains an incredible privilege. I do love to fly. But others tell me they, too, are enduring not-so-slight flight changes made at the 11th hour, including layovers added to nonstops; flight departures pushed back by several hours, leading to missed connections; and flights all-out canceled when planes aren't full.
"We get a lot of calls, especially from older fliers who want a nonstop flight," said Joel Smiler, hotline director for flyersrights.org. "They'll be going from Detroit to Phoenix, for example, and think they're all set. Then, within a very short time frame, they're rerouted through Atlanta. They're 70 or 80 years old and don't want to have to change flights."
Their options? Aside from bucking up, they can cancel that ticket and get a refund, Smiler said, and then try to get themselves booked on another airline. "But fares at that point are just sky-high."