The eye of the storm has shifted from Atlanta to the Northeast, but airlines only now are resuming normal operations and it still could be a few days before all passengers have flights.
On Tuesday night, hundreds of passengers again spent the night at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. After canceling 1,800 flights on Tuesday, Delta said it called off more than 1,200 flights on Wednesday in Atlanta and the Northeast, but returned to a regular schedule in Atlanta later in the day. Yet Delta also canceled 80 Thursday flights. AirTran canceled 90 flights on Wednesday, was still experiencing delays and said it "continues to slowly recover from the historic snowstorm in Atlanta."
AirTran said it was running extra flights to several airports to get passengers to their destinations. While the airline expected to return to normal operations on Thursday, AirTran also warned that it was still working on rebooking passengers whose flights were canceled and said it would take "several days to fully recover."
Aside from snow removal, the airlines reiterated that the delay in restarting flights once the storm had passed stemmed from the extra time needed to de-ice planes and the difficulty for employees and passengers in reaching the airport when the roads were so treacherous.
"Usually it takes 20 to 30 minutes to de-ice an airplane," said AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson, who noted the snow- and ice-caked planes have required double and triple that time.
The airport has 11 de-icing pads and more than two dozen pieces of equipment to clear snow, according to airport spokesman John Kennedy.
The airport, on behalf of the airlines, will determine whether more de-icing pads should be added, Kennedy said.
"This storm was unprecedented," Hutcheson said. "We had a game plan and managed as well as could be expected, given the storm."
Other airports have smaller operations but are more experienced in handling snowstorms than Atlanta. Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, for example, has won an industry award for snow and ice control multiple times, and has five de-icing pads and more than 100 pieces of snow removal equipment, including 36 snow-melting machines.
"We're a northern-tier airport, so our setup is so much different than what Atlanta's would be," said Patrick Hogan, Minneapolis-St. Paul airport spokesman. "We are used to dealing with large amounts of snow on an annual basis, whereas obviously you guys don't get much snow down there."
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has nine de-icing pads and a fleet of snow plows that include dump trucks with plows that attach to the front. "It gives us some flexibility," airport spokesman David Magana said. "They're used for other things during the summer and then we attach plows to them during the winter."
The airlines' recovery from massive cancellations will be helped by this mid-January period which is typically one of the slower times for travel, particularly for leisure fliers. With fewer people flying, it's easier for the airlines to reschedule passengers onto new flights.
Chris McGinnis, editor of The Ticket, a travel blog and newsletter for Atlanta travelers, said it might be easier for a business traveler to cancel a trip entirely. "It's not like they're going on a cruise with this big upfront cost or a honeymoon," he said. "Your boss understands that there's a weather emergency and you can't get out."
Delta and AirTran have suggested they now handle storms more efficiently than in past years because they "pre-cancel" thousands of flights days in advance of the inclement weather. This procedure has kept unwitting travelers from going to the airport and getting stranded.
Hutcheson of AirTran said this storm still seemed worse than others because so many workers had difficulty getting to their airport jobs. AirTran prepared for the storm by housing employees in hotels in advance. However, contract shuttle services and skycap services were stunted by the inability of those employees to get to work, Hutcheson said.
About the Author
