Messy weather in western North America is wreaking havoc on airlines and airline passengers again today.
As of 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday (December 27), the website flightaware.com was reporting more than 2,850 flight cancellations for the day. More than 1/3 of those some 1,100 in all, were within, into or out of the United States.
The biggest culprit appeared to be unusual winter weather in Seattle, where it was -4 Celsius at 2 p.m. local time. There was considerable snow in Seattle on Sunday.
Seattle-Tacoma airport had 16% of its flights cancelled on Monday, flightaware.com reported. Alaska Airlines, a major airline for Seattle-Tacoma, cancelled roughly 21% of their flights today.
Things weren’t nearly as bad for Canadian fliers. WestJet had delays on one-half its flights today, flightaware said, while it had 26 flights cancelled; about nine per cent. For Air Canada, the website reported 32% of flights were delayed and 14 flights cancelled, about three per cent of their total.
More than 6,000 flights globally were cancelled on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Airlines blamed weather as well as a staffing shortage.
