Your Chance of a Flight Cancellation May Depend on Who the Other Passengers Are
When airlines need to cancel flights because of weather or other problems, they’ll sometimes delete flights carrying leisure passengers, who tend to pay lower fares than business travelers and are more likely to accept a rebooking rather than demand a refund, says the Wall Street Journal. Just 20% of leisure passengers get refunds, compared with 30% of business travelers. Airlines try hard to avoid cancellations, in part because of the cost of refunds and wasted food but also because if seats are given to rebooked passengers, they can’t be sold to last-minute, full-fare business passengers.