4,800 flights cancelled, 650,000 people grounded – Corriere.it

The cold and snow storm that hit the US it’s ruining the trips home or to vacation for 650,000 Americans. There are dozens of blocked airports which led to the cancellation of at least 4,800 national and international flights on Friday 23 December. Since Wednesday, 7,800 have been canceled in the country with repercussions on over 1.1 million people. what emerges from the intersection of the numbers provided by the FlightAware site and Anuvu. Another 21,000 connections suffered delays – in some cases even severe ones – at departure.

Look at the weather forecast for Christmas and New Year in Italy

The statistics

The airports most affected by bad weather – which according to the national meteorological service occurs once in a generation with this intensity – are those of large cities. In detail, at 20.30 Italian time, Seattle recorded 231 canceled flights, then Chicago-O’Hare (209), New York-LaGuardia (180), Denver (164), Detroit (157). As for the companies that had to cancel the most connections, at the top there is Alaska Airlines with 44.4% of cancellations, then Frontier (23.6%), Southwest Airlines (23.1%) and Delta Air Lines (18. 2%).

Free edits

That’s also why nearly every carrier — American Airlines, Southwest, United, Delta, Spirit, JetBlue, Alaska, and others — has agreed to allow passengers to change their departures without paying a change fee or fare difference. Experts explain that not all cancellations are directly caused by bad weather: in several cases, companies prefer to cancel some connections to those airports that will then be affected by bad weather to prevent staff, planes and customers from getting stuck in the terminals.

Forecasts

The wave of bad weather hits what should be the first normal holidays since the outbreak of the pandemic. According to AAA, a travel consultancy company, more than 112 million Americans will travel for Christmas rest: of these over 7 million will take a plane.