Flight logjam from storm could take days to unscramble

By Charisse Jones
February 2, 2011

Air travelers waylaid by this week's storm could wait days for a flight to their final destinations.

The storm prompted airlines to cancel 6,321 flights Wednesday, as of early evening, says FlightAware, a tracking firm. That was on top of nearly 7,000 that were canceled on Tuesday. And more than 440 were grounded for today, leaving tens of thousands of passengers looking for seats on planes.

Fitting passengers onto the next available flight is not easy. Those already holding tickets retain priority, leaving stranded fliers to scramble for empty spots.

And at a time when the industry has pared flights, jets have few spare seats.

"If you already have a confirmed seat on a flight for a specific date, they're going to honor that first," says Anne Banas, executive editor of SmarterTravel.com. "It's a situation where you're trying to rebook passengers on already packed planes ... so you have to slot people over time.''

Whether they're traveling to Detroit or Des Moines, many fliers must connect through major hubs like New York or Chicago, which were hard hit by the latest bout of bad weather. The cascading cancellations and large number of cities paralyzed by the storm mean it may take longer than usual to clear the logjam, some travel experts say.

"I don't ever remember 12,000 flights being canceled at one time," says George Hobica of Airfarewatchdog.com, who says it normally takes three to five days for all displaced passengers to get where they need to go.

"It was a huge storm, so I think it's going to be harder than in the past," he says.

Some carriers added flights. AirTran, which canceled 179 flights Wednesday, added seven flights, most to Milwaukee and Indianapolis, to help get back on track, spokesman Christopher White says.

Recent mergers of major carriers — such as Delta and Northwest, and United and Continental — could bode well for stranded passengers.

"It's easier for the airlines to be more creative rerouting people," Hobica says. Delta, for instance, may not have connected passengers in the past through Minneapolis, "which was a Northwest hub, but now they can because it's one big airline.''

Unlike winter's first major storm that struck over Christmas, this week's blizzard comes during a traditionally light travel time. And some passengers may scrap their travel plans, freeing up a space for others.

"Not everybody who was inconvenienced is going to go because they already missed the cruise ... they missed the wedding," Hobica says.

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Flight logjam from storm could take days to unscramble

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