Winter storms cause thousands of flight delays and cancellations

AccuWeather

The massive winter storm that affected much of the U.S. earlier this week caused delays for nearly half of all flights in the U.S. But with more severe weather on the way, what comes next?

Transcript

00:00 Well, this week's variety of extreme weather continues to impact air travel to no surprise

00:04 over much of the country.

00:05 And Kathleen Bangs is spokesperson for FlightAware.

00:08 Kathleen, thanks so much for joining us once again.

00:11 Great to be here.

00:12 Well, it's good to speak with you, Kathleen.

00:14 And how is the most recent storm system impacting flights?

00:19 We had all the rain, the wind, the snow.

00:21 Things are improving today, but how do we stand this week?

00:24 Well, we've cut into our beautiful record from over the holidays, and actually almost

00:30 half of all flights were delayed yesterday, and we saw over 7% canceled.

00:35 So that's significant.

00:37 Anytime we get over 1% of flights canceled, the system notices it.

00:42 And we had almost 1,500 canceled flights yesterday across the U.S., 9,000 delays.

00:49 And looking at more this weekend, unfortunately.

00:52 If we kind of zoom out and look at the most recent big picture perspective, flight cancellations

00:57 in 2023 were down to just 1.2%, according to the Department of Transportation.

01:03 So we've been told that's the lowest in a decade.

01:05 So what's behind some of those improved numbers, and could that potentially continue once we

01:09 get over these short-term weather humps this year?

01:12 Yes.

01:13 You know, when you take weather out, which over Thanksgiving we had such great weather

01:17 and fairly good weather over the Christmas season, although not quite as good as Thanksgiving.

01:22 So the airlines were prepared.

01:24 They actually had larger aircraft on a lot of routes.

01:27 They paired back schedules all through the last year.

01:30 They ramped up employee hiring and training.

01:33 So for this winter season, they went out and got more de-icing equipment, for example,

01:38 in the case of Southwest Airlines, got more crews trained.

01:41 So they were definitely prepared.

01:42 And yeah, it's really surprising.

01:44 We are back to pre-pandemic 2019 passenger levels.

01:48 We're actually at record passenger levels, but we've cut in half the number of cancellations

01:54 in 2023 with previous years.

01:57 So the airlines' performance this year was really sterling, really A-plus in terms of

02:01 delays and cancellations overall.

02:04 Delays still high, a little bit higher than last year, and a couple extra minutes in that

02:09 average length of delays.

02:11 But the most important thing, cancellations are significantly down until yesterday.

02:16 OK, well, that's good information.

02:19 And I know that we need to keep a close eye on the increase in delays and cancellations

02:23 likely for Friday.

02:25 And any early projections for Friday to Saturday?

02:29 Well, unfortunately, what we're looking at is some major airports like Chicago, O'Hare,

02:35 unfortunately, being impacted.

02:36 And what we're looking at is those areas that don't just have rain or that don't just have

02:40 snow but that have high winds, because those high winds, as you know, kick up that snow

02:45 into blizzard conditions.

02:47 That visibility comes way down, makes it more difficult for flights to get in.

02:51 They have to do instrument approaches then as opposed to visual approaches.

02:55 That slows down the airspace.

02:57 Next big thing is that wind, of course, then that limits what runways you can use.

03:02 Zero wind, you can use all your runways.

03:04 Twenty, thirty knots, gusting to forty, that limits your runways.

03:08 And of course, de-icing.

03:09 When we see areas like Chicago, O'Hare getting possible slush and freezing rain this weekend,

03:14 that means airplanes not only have to de-ice before they take off, sometimes if they're

03:18 waiting in line, they have to return and de-ice and anti-ice.

03:23 So they have to do more de-icing steps.

03:25 That slows everything down.

03:26 So any place that you're going to see especially frozen precipitation this weekend, thunderstorm

03:31 activity or strong winds, and that means a lot of areas, you're going to see delays and

03:36 unfortunately more cancellations.

03:38 All right.

03:39 A fascinating insider's perspective.

03:41 We learn more things whenever we talk to you, Kathleen, from FlightAware.

03:44 Thanks again, Kathleen Banks.

03:46 Good to see you.

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