Winter storms across wide swatches of the eastern United States and Canada, as well as a bone-chilling polar vortex, have sparked one of the worst travel weekends in recent history. More than 10,000 flights in and out of the United States had been cancelled for today (Sunday, Jan. 25) as of 9 a.m. ET. If you figure only 100 people per flight, that’s a million passengers left stranded on a single day. More than 4,000 flights in the US were cancelled on Saturday, and nearly 2,000 have already been kyboshed for tomorrow (Monday). There are reports of major power outages Read more
American Airlines
Winter Storms Wreaking Havoc on Travel in Eastern USA and Canada; More Than 15,000 Flights Cancelled
There’s an old saying that all roads lead to Rome. It appears the same goes for airplanes and Internet travel searches. With the funeral for Pope Francis taking place this weekend, and the election of a new pope coming in a few weeks at the Vatican, Expedia says global flight searches for Rome are up 125% for travel this week versus the same period last year. US residents are seemingly looking to make it to Rome soon, as flight searches are up 250% on Expedia.com and lodging searches up 35%. For Canada, flight searches to The Eternal City on Read more
If you’re looking for a hassle-free flight in Canada, you might want to think twice about Flair Airlines. Low-fare Flair Airlines had more customer complaints than any airline in Canada in the last fiscal quarter of the year, while Porter Airlines had the least. The Canadian Transportation Agency has released airline complaint figures for the three-month period from April to June of this year. The report includes airlines with an average of one or more complaints per 100 flights to/from/within Canada submitted to the CTA during 1one of the quarterly periods. Airlines that did not meet this criteria, or that did not Read more
Hurricane Idalia is sending massive storm surges cascading into parts of Florida, and also wreaking havoc for travellers and airlines. Reuters reports that airlines in the United States canceled more than 850 flights today (Aug. 30) as the storm landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm. Southwest Airlines had canceled 222 flights as of noon Eastern Time, while Delta Air Lines and American Airlines canceled 158 and 132 flights, respectively, as of 8:17 a.m. ET, according to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com. The website reported 65% of incoming flights to Tampa International Airport had been cancelled, Read more
As Rosanne Roseannadanna liked to say on the old Saturday Night Live skits, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” The airline industry in the past six months has battled freak snowstorms. They’ve had mysterious computer issues. I seem to recall a plague of locusts in Nebraska, but I could be wrong. Anyway, now comes something else: wildfire smoke. Cancellations didn’t seem too bad, but major airports in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States suffered thousands of delays on Wednesday as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south. At one point, the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S. called a Read more
