Dealing with Students Who Cancel

My Afghan students (a couple) have three young children at home and the father works five days a week. They often have medical appointments and it's difficult from them to maintain a schedule. We've tried several meeting times but there's always some uncertainty about their availability, and it's over an hour's drive for me to and from their home, where we meet. The best strategy I've found is to text the father around middday on the day we are scheduled to meet, reminding him of the meeting time. He then responds to let me know if he expects to be able to meet. This has reduced the frequency of missed sessions.