International flights are not expected to be affected by the shutdown.
Major U.S. carriers also stressed Thursday that most flights won’t be affected by the restrictions being applied to 40 high-traffic airports.
American Airlines said that its initial schedule changes would amount to around 220 flights canceled each day — but that it plans to continue operating around 6,000 daily flights.
United said it was continuing to make updates to its schedule. The airline said it canceled 184 flights on Friday, and that 168 and 158 flights would be canceled on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Others major carriers are advising passengers to try to stay flexible, however.
Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle suggested Thursday that passengers should book a backup ticket on another airline if they need to travel in the next few days.
In a LinkedIn post, Biffle wrote that while carriers like Frontier would be putting impacted passengers on the next available flights, “that may not be until after your event due to the scale of this disruption.”
“Make sure you buy a backup that is changeable into a credit or full refund,” he wrote. “If you don’t need the insurance keep the credit for your next flight.”
How travel insurance policies will be impacted by the shutdown is unclear.
A flight would be less likely to qualify for coverage if a policy was purchased after the shutdown began Oct. 1.
After that, most carriers would deem the shutdown to have been a “foreseeable event” that would be difficult to make a claim against, wrote Squaremouth’s Lauren McCormick on the travel insurance comparison site Wednesday.
Passengers could also purchase a “canceled for any reason” policy, though McCormick estimated that these would likely cost about $56 a day on average — as much as 50% more than a typical comprehensive coverage plan.
A passenger may also be covered if a carrier declares the shutdown to be a “common carrier delay,” she wrote. It was unclear late Thursday whether any airlines had done so.
If you plan to travel in the next week, please continue to monitor the status of your flight and the carrier’s refund and rebooking policies.
