Wretched weather + capacity cuts = Christmas crunch time

Industry insiders have been predicting for months that a combination of widespread bad weather coupled with considerably reduced seating capacity could create real problems for travelers. It didn’t take long to prove them right.

According to FlightStats www.flightstats.com , the holiday travel plans of some one million passengers were “seriously disrupted" between Friday December 19 and the afternoon of Sunday December 28, this as about 800 flights were cancelled because of bad weather stretching from the Pacific Northwest all the way to the East Coast. In yea rs past, airlines would have had some extra capacity to re-accommodate those passengers. But in he wake of the spike in petroleum prices this past year, carriers grounded vast swaths of their jets. That resulted in two to three delays for stranded passengers until airlines could re-accommodate them on other flights.

The worst weather day, says FlightStats, was Sunday December 21. That’s when just 39% of flights arrived on time – within 15 minutes of schedule.

Some sectors of the country were hit particularly hard. The first three days of the holiday period, it was New York. Newark (EWR) cancelled almost 46% of its flights, LaGuardia 41%, and Kennedy (JFK) 21%.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest was slammed by the worst snowstorm in three decades. When Portland’s (PDX) de-icing gear broke, 37% of its flights got scrubbed.

Not left out of the malevolent mix was Chicago O’Hare International (ORD), the world’s second busiest airport. December 23 and 24—at the worst time possible—fewer than 10% and 20%, respectively, of its flights arrived on time.

Neither was usually reliable Salt Lake City (SLC) immune from problems. FlightStats says the day after Christmas half of its flights were diverted or cancelled.

It will be instructive to see what lessons the airline industry gleans from this past holiday. Don’t look for them to add significant amounts of seating capacity anytime soon. The most probable course of action: airports could re-work their weather plans to provide more cots, food, water, and other essentials for passengers who are stranded. Many of them have already made significant strides in this area.

©Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler