this is good advice, let me extrapolate to a simpler heuristic.
When landing at an airport when you know several connections are lost due to local issue with your airline, always get on the phone as soon as you get out of the aircraft. certainly call before heading to the kiosk and lining up for the lone agent to support you
Because, by the time the sole agent gets to listen to your issue, the next flight will be fully booked, and your hopes of getting out quickly will be gone.
Bear in mind that many airlines allow ticketing staff at the airport (that is if they didn't get rid of them all, yes, I'm looking at you, British Airways at LHR) much more leeway in terms of rerouting, particularly on other routes or indeed carriers.
We had this on 25 December, our flight to London was cancelled. Automatically rebooked to our destination later that day, but our party (2 adults, 3 kids) was split up across two separate flights several hours apart.
Of course I had already phoned in even before we got the rebooking. email, airline phone agent said that's what they have, both of those flights now full so no chance of getting us all together. Asked about other departure points, told no.
Queued at ticketing desk for 45 mins, asked to be reunited on flight to the same destination but from a different departure airport, 2h away, agent did it immediately, checked us in and handed over the new boarding passes.
Don't underestimate just how much changes when the tickets move to airport control at T-24h
> The problem is WN doesn’t interline with other carriers
I've not had the pleasure of WN, but have used several European LCCs. There are some situations where good travel insurance is possibly the only thing you can rely on.
Fix your own alternative travel (believe me, having been disrupted on Christmas Day this is sometimes easier said than done), demand a refund from your original carrier, and claim everything back from your insurer.
Better yet use the in-app or website self service functions to rebook yourself without waiting to talk to anyone. It is truly a race to grab the remaining seats on the next few flights.
Many airlines don't allow as much leeway in their self-service rebooking as they grant their own staff. This is perhaps ok if you're flying a route with many flights per day, but if you need even a minor reroute due to a cancellation, often the airline app refuses to even consider this, even if it saves your overall itinerary and is therefore definitely in the airline's interest too.
When landing at an airport when you know several connections are lost due to local issue with your airline, always get on the phone as soon as you get out of the aircraft. certainly call before heading to the kiosk and lining up for the lone agent to support you
Because, by the time the sole agent gets to listen to your issue, the next flight will be fully booked, and your hopes of getting out quickly will be gone.