Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has canceled more than 300 flights Saturday as the fallout of its struggles during a Friday winter storm at its Atlanta hub continued into a second day.
The storm disruptions were compounded by an aborted takeoff of a Delta plane with passengers evacuating via emergency slides onto a snowy runway Friday morning.
The runway was temporarily closed after the evacuation, while other runways amid the snowstorm were not yet cleared and deiced for use. As a result, there were no usable runways and no takeoffs and landings at the world’s busiest airport for more than two hours on Friday.
Some flights had to be diverted during the shutdown of flights at Hartsfield-Jackson. Delta said “several bands of sleet and freezing rain throughout the day and early into the evening also prompted diversions and a temporary pause in aircraft deicing, further challenging our recovery.”
The flight cancellations mean a second day of travelers being unable to get to their destinations or return home after trips, with some sleeping at airports.
While Delta had canceled fewer than 200 flights including Delta Connection flights for Friday in advance of the storm, that snowballed into more than 1,160 flight cancellations by the end of the day, according to FlightAware.com.
Including other airlines’ flight cancellations, there were more than 1,500 flights canceled at Hartsfield-Jackson on Friday, including more than 120 Southwest Airlines cancellations, the FlightAware data show. Southwest is the second-largest carrier at Hartsfield-Jackson.
Delta said its employees “are working to recover the airline heading into Saturday.”
On Saturday at Hartsfield-Jackson, the Delta cancellations across its route network include more than 245 cancellations of departures or arrivals in Atlanta, amounting to about 20% of its flight schedule in Atlanta, according to FlightAware. Some morning flights have been canceled because flight crews and planes are out of place after the storm flight cancellations. Delta said it expects its operations to recover Saturday “as weather conditions improve.”
Frontier, Spirit, American and Southwest also canceled a portion of their flights in Atlanta for Saturday.
Combined with cancellations on Delta and other carriers, there are more than 300 flights canceled at Hartsfield-Jackson for Saturday, according to FlightAware.
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