Due to the week-long school closures from Hurricane Sandy earlier this year, many schools, including NYC Public Schools, have pre-emptively cancelled or shortened their planned February 2013 school breaks.
For families with kids planning to travel during this period - probably traveling on non-refundable economy tickets - this change in school schedule could cost them a fortune in change fees (imaging the fees from changing flights for parties of 5 or 6 people!).
American has announced that they will give a one-time change fee waiver for any ticket for flights departing LGA/JFK/HPN/EWR between February 15-24, so long as your ticket was issued prior to November 29. While they still require travel one-year from date of original issue (not too helpful for those who book 330 days in advance), for many, this waiver will represent a big savings - and will probably keep a few more kids in school!
Nice move AA!
http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInformation/travelAlerts.jsp
Comments
To be fair, JetBlue was the one that initiated this proactive waiver, with UA and AA following suit (in that order.)
Delta and JetBlue are doing the same thing. Haven't heard anything about United.
Its up on UA's Important notices page - http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/travel/news/Pages/travelnotices.aspx