Cold weather is wreaking havoc again for Canadian air passengers today. WestJet issued a statement this afternoon to say they’ve had to consolidate roughly 15% of their flights through the end of January. According to statistics from flightaware.com, which tracks flights around the world, there have been early 200 flights cancelled today involving just five Canadian airports. Toronto Pearson, by far the largest airport in Canada, was listed as having 53 cancellations, while Vancouver was at 51 and Calgary close behind at 48. There were 28 flights cancelled in Montreal as of noon Eastern Time today, while 14 were listed Read more
winter
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, Read more
The U.S. has been plagued by holiday cancellations, but Canada’s two largest airlines say things are much smoother north of the border. Multiple reports out of the United States this weekend point to major cancellation issues, blamed on both staffing shortages and weather issues. The website flightaware.com, which tracks planes around the world, reported 690 cancellations for flights within or into/out of the U.S. on Christmas Eve, followed by 996 on Christmas Day. As of 1 p.m. Eastern Time today, the site was reporting 774 cancellations for flights within or into/out of the U.S. Delta was looking at 131 cancellations Read more
It wasn’t as bad as calling out the army to deal with a snowfall, but shutting down Pearson Airport on Tuesday was a very bad signal to send out. I understand that it was NOT business as usual on Tuesday. The cold snap was incredible and conditions were appalling for both operations and people. It’s completely understandable that flights would be cancelled, both arriving and departing. And it’s understandable that luggage would be delayed and other issues would pop up. But that doesn’t mean you have to halt the entire shebang and officially declare that you’ve shuttered Canada’s largest airport. Read more
