Weather, Boeing grounding cause flight disruptions over MLK weekend

Air passengers on Tuesday continued to deal with the fallout from harsh winter storms that disrupted travel over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, with many still struggling to reach their destinations despite an ebb in the extreme weather.

From Friday through Monday, more than 8,000 flights were canceled and over 31,400 were delayed more than an hour, according to statistics from the online flight tracking service FlightAware, as a series of storms snarled travel across a swath from Denver to D.C.

The delays spilled into Tuesday, with ground stops in Philadelphia and Orlando and delays in Newark and at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, both of which were experiencing average delays of nearly two hours because of snow and ice. More than a half-dozen other airports, including Albuquerque International Sunport, Baltimore-Washington International Marshall and Dallas-Fort Worth International, were spraying planes with de-icing fluid before they could depart.

Colleen Kuemmel’s Southwest Airlines flight was about 45 minutes from Chicago O’Hare International on Sunday when the pilot announced he was returning to Denver because all the gates at the Windy City airport were frozen.

“He started off by saying that in 20 years of flying, he’s never had this happen,” said Kuemmel, a 44-year-old consultant who lives in the Chicago area.

Once back in Denver, she decided to stick with her original route rather than diverting to Milwaukee or Indianapolis, even though the next available flight was not until Tuesday. She made the most of the unplanned stop, booking a hotel for two nights and grabbing dinner with a friend.

“I felt sort of lucky because there was a young couple in front of me that genuinely seemed like they could not afford the cost of two nights in a hotel,” she said. “That stuck out to me. I had the luxury of having extra points that I could use.”

Laurie Kilmartin, who works as a standup comedian, was delayed in Denver for three hours Sunday after her connecting flight to Burbank, California, was canceled. She learned seconds after her original Southwest flight, which had departed from Grand Rapids, Michigan, landed on the tarmac. Dozens of passengers were standing in line to adjust their flights, and Kilmartin said she was in line for a little over half an hour.

“I can understand weather delays, but I’m always surprised that airlines seem to act like it’s the first time they’ve ever gone through a snowstorm,” she said.

Olivia Cinquino and her travel companions were still in Mexico on Saturday morning when she learned that their connecting flight from Atlanta to Buffalo would be delayed until the following morning.

Cinquino, a 22-year-old Buffalo resident who works in a pizzeria, and Caroline Testa, her cousin and roommate, weren’t too rattled. This was the third winter in a row that inclement weather had upended their vacation. Two years ago, they overnighted in Chicago on their way back from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Last year, they spent two nights in Detroit on their return from Cancún.

“I don’t know why we keep doing the same time of year. I guess it’s just tradition at this point,” Cinquino said. “But we did all kind of say maybe we should reconsider this time of year.”

After her previous experiences, Testa took action. The 23-year-old, who works in legal administration, booked three rooms in an Atlanta airport hotel before departing for Cancún. Throughout the night, the group refreshed the Delta Air Lines app for updates on their Sunday flight.

Before the weekend, the national airspace system already was dealing with fallout from the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to ground more than 100 Boeing 737 Max 9 jets after a Jan. 5 incident in which a part flew off an Alaska Airlines plane shortly after takeoff. Alaska and United Airlines have had to cancel hundreds of flights as they wait for the FAA and Boeing to work out details of formal inspections that must take place before the planes can resume flying.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Alaska Airlines incident. Meanwhile, the FAA has launched probes into Boeing’s manufacturing process and whether the company and its suppliers followed rules to ensure that its planes were safe for operation.

Monday was the worst day for travel, with more than 3,300 cancellations and nearly 11,000 flights into, within and out of the country delayed. Among the hardest-hit was George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, where almost half the scheduled departures were canceled and 37 % were delayed, according to FlightAware. Dallas-Fort Worth also saw its operations disrupted Monday, with 21 % of departures canceled and 56 delayed.

Other airports affected included Chicago’s O’Hare International, Denver International and Nashville International. Many regional carriers also saw high numbers of cancellations, including Mesa Airlines and CommuteAir, which were forced to cancel more than half of their flights.

The last time there were so many cancellations and delays was Dec. 23, 2022, when Southwest was grappling with a system meltdown that left many crew members and airplanes out of position.

The weekend disruptions demonstrate the huge impact that weather has on airline operations. After Southwest’s 2022 meltdown, many feared a repeat during the 2023 winter travel period, but relatively mild weather resulted in significantly fewer cancellations and delays than in the two previous years. Between Dec. 20 and Jan. 2, U.S. carriers canceled just over 1,600 flights, or 0.5 percent, while about 19 percent of flights were delayed.