US Air, welcome to my no-fly list
 

In 2006, I flew from Florida to Sacramento CA for my father's funeral. The morning of the return flight, I got an automated call from the airline, informing that the flight had been cancelled, and giving an 800 number for more information. After a half-hour on hold, I got through to a live person, who didn't let me know why the flight had been cancelled, but implied that there weren't enough passengers booked. As there were no other flights to Tampa that day (on USAir or any other airline at that airport), I had to stay overnight. At least they offered: a voucher at the sleaziest La Quinta ever, a rental car, and a $100 voucher on America West (never used; you want it?) But for a recent encounter with Spirit Air, this was my worst flying experience; however, it pales in comparison to some of the nightmares other contributors to this site have suffered. Anyhoo, US Air and America West are on my no-fly list now.

Chances are that there were extenuating circumstances that day, such as weather, ground delays, etc somewhere that caused US Air to get behind in it's flight schedule. They needed to cancel some flights to recover, and your flight was picked, not because it didn't have enough people booked, but rather because it would affect the least number of people. When airlines HAVE to cancel flights, they look at every available option, weigh the consequences, and try to select the flights that will affect the smallest number of people. Unfortunately, you were booked on one of those flights. At least the put you in a hotel, paid for a rental car, and gave you a voucher. I think you'll find that that's a lot more than most people get on this forum.

Re:
 

Yeah, that's probably what happened, although they cancelled it first thing in the morning (but California time), hours before scheduled takeoff. You'd think they'd try to get caught up in all that time, or divert to another connector, or something.

Although it's true that I got treated a lot better than many others on this site, that's really just a reflection of the reduced expectations caused by years of awful service by the airline industry. If almost any other business treated customers this way, this often, they'd be out of business. We deserve better.