Airline staff don’t always have all the information when it comes to telling you why your flight was delayed or canceled. In the absence of details, they may blame it on “weather,” as this is a condition beyond the airline’s control and therefore generally not responsible. However, if you suspect another reason for a delay or cancellation, you may be able to use ExpertFlyer to learn the real cause.
The real reasons can make all the difference. For example, the American Airlines customer service plan states:
“If delays or cancellations are caused by events beyond our control (such as weather), you are responsible for your own overnight accommodation, meals and incidental charges.”
However, it’s a different story entirely if the delay or cancellation is caused by factors within the airline’s control, such as crew or aircraft availability.
Each airline has different policies, and some countries also have regulations to protect passengers (e.g. EU261). You may also have travel insurance or a credit card with travel delay protection.
So, now that you know why you might need to know what’s causing delays or cancellations, here’s how you can get this information using ExpertFlyer.
What is ExpertFlyer?
Before we dive into how to use ExpertFlyer to see why a flight was delayed or canceled, let’s briefly discuss the ExpertFlyer product itself. ExpertFlyer is a product used by many advanced travelers and travel agents to find awards and upgrades, check flight availability, and view fare information.
ExpertFlyer offers a free tier primarily for staying safe using ExpertFlyer alerts A better seat. There’s also a Basic tier, which costs $4.99 per month (or $49.99 per year) and allows you to set up four alarms at once. It also allows you to search for rewards and upgrades on one date at a time (up to 250 queries per month).
However, the ExpertFlyer’s real power and usefulness comes from its advanced levels. This level costs $9.99 per month (or $99.99 per year) but provides 200 alerts at a time (including aircraft change alerts and flight schedule change alerts). Additionally, it offers the ability to search for awards and upgrades at weekly intervals (unlimited searches) and access all available published fares.
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You need to be a Premium ExpertFlyer member to view the reasons for flight delays or cancellations. However, you can sign up for a five-day Premium free trial when you sign up for ExpertFlyer, so you can use it to find information about flight issues in a short period of time.
Related: A beginner’s guide to finding bonus space with ExpertFlyer
How to use ExpertFlyer to check the reasons for flight delays or cancellations
Once you have a Premium ExpertFlyer account, you can use it to view the reasons for recent flight delays or cancellations. To see if ExpertFlyer can understand why your flight was delayed or canceled, log in and click “Flight Status” on the left navigation menu.
Enter the date, select the airline after entering the code, and then enter the flight number.
After clicking “Search”, a page containing flight information will load.
Click “See other reviews” and you may see reasons for delays or cancellations.
In the case of flight AA167 on December 8, the delay was due to an aircraft equipment change earlier in the day that affected the flight. Therefore, you can use this information if you need to prove that a delay was within the airline’s control and not due to weather or other factors. If you find the attached annotations difficult to understand, you may want to use a large language model (such as ChatGPT) to assist in decoding the text.
Why ExpertFlyer may not show the reason for your flight delay or cancellation
Unfortunately, ExpertFlyer is unable to provide detailed flight status information for each airline. And the explanations provided by some airlines will be less detailed than those provided by American Airlines in the example above. In short, ExpertFlyer will only display useful flight status notes if your airline publishes operational notes and delay codes in a GDS source that ExpertFlyer can read.
You can usually use ExpertFlyer to find the reason for a flight delay or cancellation on American Airlines or Alaska Airlines, but not on budget airlines or Delta Air Lines. The reasons for United flight delays and cancellations you can find through ExpertFlyer are inconsistent, but sometimes helpful. However, if you’re flying with an international airline that uses Amadeus for airport operations (such as British Airways), you may see delays or cancellations.
Finally, you can only get flight status information for flights in the last 7 days and the next three days through ExpertFlyer. But if you wait more than a day or so, that information may not be available for flights operated by some airlines. Therefore, if you experience a flight delay or cancellation, even if you don’t expect to need it, you should immediately check the cause in ExpertFlyer and take a screenshot.
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