Delayed flights, packed planes can test holiday cheer
— -- If you plan on flying this week, prepare yourself. Volatile weather and packed planes make the Christmas and New Year's season one of the trickiest times of the year for air travel.
Airlines for America, the U.S. airline industry's trade organization, is predicting just over 43 million air travelers in the 21-day period surrounding Christmas and New Year's, a slight drop from last year because of energy prices and reduced household wealth. That averages to about 2 million air travelers a day. The organization will release its full forecast today.
Odds are high they could face delays because of bad weather. Nearly one in three domestic flights for the major carriers reporting since 1987 were late, canceled or diverted over the holidays the last six years, according to the Transportation Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. And 2.1% were canceled from 2005 through 2010 during the winter holiday period, which typically runs from mid-December into the new year.
And they'll find few empty seats on planes. There are 3.1% fewer seats available on domestic flights this month compared with last December because airlines have cut back, according to a USA TODAY analysis of schedule data from OAG-The Official Airline Guide.
All this means you may not reach your destination on time if delays ripple through the nation's air traffic network. If you miss a connecting flight, or if your flight is canceled, there are simply fewer seats available on subsequent flights.
"As load factors get higher and higher, carriers know and customers ought to be aware, when there are unscheduled disruptions, it's going to be difficult or impossible to get them rerouted on time," says Robert Mann, an airline industry analyst at R.W. Mann & Co. in New York.
Travelers need look no further than last Christmas for what can happen. Because of snowstorms in Europe and on the U.S. East Coast, 117,629 domestic flights — about one-third of all flights — were delayed. And 16,422 flights were canceled from Dec. 18 to Jan. 2, according to FlightStats, which provides global flight status data.
No one can say for sure what Mother Nature will do this holiday. A storm crossing the South and into the East will probably bring mostly rain to those areas through midweek with some light snow possible Tuesday along its northern fringe in the central U.S. For much of the country, the week ahead looks calm, according to the National Weather Service.
That's welcome news to Paul Mayo, who hasn't had much luck traveling during Christmas week. Last year, his flight home through London was canceled when a snowstorm shut down the airport, so he had to go through Munich.
The year before, a blizzard hit Washington, D.C., canceling his connection home to Orlando. He could have been stranded in Zurich for a week but switched from United Airlines to Air Canada and flew through Toronto, arriving home one day later than planned.
"It's good to know your alternatives if you get snowed in," says Mayo, a frequent traveler from Jensen Beach, Fla.
This year, his strategy was to try to avoid snow and Christmas week travel disruptions. He and his family left Sunday for South Africa, where they were to hop a cruise to Singapore. "We avoid D.C., Paris and London as much as possible," he says.
Some changes
