Airlines' next blizzard challenge? Get flights back on track

More than 12,000 flights have been canceled since Friday. That was fallout from the Blizzard of 2016, which dumped ice and snow on airports from the Carolinas to New England. Even though the snow finally stopped, U.S. airlines now face their next blizzard-related challenge: Getting flights back on track.

That will be no easy task.

Several of the USA’s busiest airports lost an entire day’s schedule during the peak of the storm. New York JFK, Philadelphia, New York LaGuardia, Newark Liberty, Charlotte and Baltimore/Washington all halted flights for a full day.

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Sunday: Snow is over, but flight cancellations top 12,000

Things were even worse in the nation's capital, where flights were halted for 48 hours at Washington Dulles and Washington Reagan National airports.

All five of the nation’s biggest airlines operate at least one hub at one of those airports, meaning flight disruptions had a ripple effect that extended throughout their entire networks. Both crews and planes were knocked off schedule. Employees were unable to get to airports, especially in cities like New York City and Washington, where mass transit suspended operations and officials discouraged travel by car.

So, how do U.S. carriers hit the reset button after such a disruptive storm? It’s a slow process, airline officials say.

“Try as you might, you can’t shut down your schedule and then have everything go immediately back to normal” once an airport is able to resume operations, American Airlines spokeswoman Michelle Mohr tells Today in the Sky.

There are a few specific things that American and other carriers say they are doing to get flights back to normal as quickly as possible.

Winter weather waivers 

Every big U.S. airline now waives its change fees ahead of big storms. The details vary, but the waivers generally allow customers to make one change to their itineraries without paying any additional fees or recalculated fares.

It’s a consumer-friendly process that allows customers to move their travel away from the storm. It also helps the airline, Mohr says.

When poor weather is forecast in advance — like it was with this blizzard — the waivers allow customers to make changes. People can fly earlier, perhaps getting out before the storm hits. Or they can choose to fly later, waiting for the storm to pass before trying to fly.

Either way, it’s a boost to an airline since the carrier will no longer have to worry about fliers getting stranded during the peak of a weather disruption.

“It’s immensely helpful,” Mohr says. “It thins out the number of customers who end up with canceled flights.”

Keeping planes out of harm’s way 

The trend in recent years is for airlines to preemptively cancel flights before the worst of a storm is forecast to hit.

U.S. carriers say this helps recovery efforts by keeping their aircraft — and their crews — from getting stranded at airports expecting poor weather. This may create an upfront spike in cancellations, but once the bad weather passes, airlines are able to mobilize their fleet and crews much more quickly than if they had become stuck at a snowbound airport.

“We try to get them out of the storm's path,” says Mohr. “Otherwise you may end up digging (planes) out of a 12-foot snowdrift."

Extra staffing 

This may be an obvious solution, but it’s essential to deal with a crush of rebooking passengers inevitable in any significant weather event.

American has been “amping up” its staff at reservations call centers in anticipation of a spike in call volume.

Similarly, United is doing the same with its airport staff at Newark Liberty and Washington Dulles — two United hubs that have been severely impacted by the blizzard.

“United support teams from Chicago and Houston are traveling to Newark and Dulles to provide assistance to their co-workers and customers,” United spokesman Jonathan Guerin says in a statement to Today in the Sky. Those support teams will include ramp agents, customer service agents and other crewmembers who can help augment United's Washington and New York operations until schedules return to normal.

Extra flights and "upgauging"

One of the best ways to clear a backlog of stranded passengers is to fly extra flights or switch to bigger planes — “upgauging,” in industry vernacular — on previously scheduled flights.

American and United each say they plan to do so this week, and other carriers flying to hard-hit East Coast airports will likely do the same.

“It is part of our plan over the next few days,” United’s Guerin says to Today in the Sky. “Our immediate focus now and over the next few days is to ensure a safe and successful ramp up of service so we can begin getting our customers back on their way."

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