Holiday Rush On At Tri-State Area Airports Following Troubled Travel Day
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The rush is on for holiday travelers after rain and fog caused delays and cancellations throughout the Northeast.
Most flights were on time Thursday morning at LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and John F. Kennedy airports after low visibility Wednesday and overnight snarled flights and stranded passengers.
"It's been very easy. The roads were empty," traveler David Kleinman said. "We were surprised, given all the delays last night and the call for bad weather, so hopefully it will be smooth sailing."
Airports were packed with last-minute travelers who were concerned about getting home on time, and grateful for comparatively easy travel.
"It just turned out to be really smooth," said traveler Gregory Musah.
That's a far cry for how things were Wednesday night, when frustrated travelers had their hopes dashed to due to weather conditions.
Montaque Rios from Philadelphia was supposed to have a very quick stopover at LaGuardia before continuing on to Houston.
"I should've stayed home but I thought nah it's going to be okay," Rios told CBS2's Dace Carlin. "I started yesterday evening so I've been here all night."
"I don't know anything, the website says one thing, somebody came by and said, 'your flight is canceled' and then I called and they said it wasn't canceled, " one air traveler said.
Some fliers at JFK were hoping to make it to France only to find out that their flight had been canceled three times. An airline employee told them to come back to the airport Thursday, but couldn't tell them what time they may get a flight out.
At LaGuardia, some people ended up having to stay the night at the airport, their holiday plans dashed.
"We're going to Jamaica, supposedly," said traveler Hany Mostafa. "It's not going to happen."
"I just want my money back at this point because we paid like $1,500 for a flight to Dayton, Ohio and got rebooked three times," said traveler Shaye Lefkowitz.
There were about 4,500 delays and 375 cancellations Wednesday evening, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. The majority of flights canceled were smaller regional jets that carry 50 to 76 passengers. More than 28,000 flights were scheduled for Wednesday and a typical day sees about 150 cancelations and 4,000 delays.
The catch: Flights are extremely full over the holiday period, with most travelers unable to make changes in their schedule.
The trade group Airlines for America says more than 38 million passengers are expected to fly over the Christmas through New Year's period, and travelers can expect flights to be about 90 percent full.
Crowds like that mean that any hiccup in the system -- delays at a major airport, a technology glitch -- can ripple across the country and leave tens of thousands of passengers standing in airport lines.
Back-to-back storms led to more than 4,300 canceled flights around Christmas 2012. This time the Northeast corridor not only should be free of snow and ice, it should be relatively balmy with temperatures on Christmas Day in the 60s from New York to Boston. But rain and snow are forecast through Thursday in parts of the West, and the South and Ohio Valley could see severe storms before Christmas.
Airlines have been helped recently by the El Niño pattern that has brought above-average temperatures to northern states.
"We saw that through the Thanksgiving holiday season, and we've seen that through November and December,'' said Steve Hozdulick, Southwest Airlines' managing director of operational performance.
United posted its lowest flight-cancellation rate ever for a Thanksgiving week, and Southwest had its best on-time performance ever for the day before the holiday, which helps reduce other problems such as lost or delayed bags.
Besides the vagaries of weather, airlines in recent years have done a better job of adjusting schedules for peak holiday periods.
According to Mark Duell of FlightAware, U.S. airlines added up to 700 flights a day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, compared with the same days last week. They cut about 4,400 flights on Christmas Eve and 5,700 on Friday, Christmas Day, when fewer people want to travel, he said.
Delta Air Lines and its Delta Connection affiliate scheduled 5,253 flights next Sunday, compared with fewer than 5,000 on a typical winter Sunday. Southwest expected Wednesday to be its busiest day, with more than 3,800 flights.
The peak day was last Friday for American, with 6,900 flights, and United, nearly 5,000, but both will also operate increased flights each of the next two Sundays.
Some of the additional flights are late at night, which gives travelers more options and sometimes a lower fare. American and United successfully used the redeye tactic over Thanksgiving.
American added night flights at Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix and Charlotte.
At Delta, some extra flights will connect big cities that get heavy traffic all the time, while others will go to warm-weather destinations, said spokesman Morgan Durrant. Delta will occasionally use bigger planes. Through Jan. 3 there is an Atlanta-Salt Lake City round trip using a 293-seat Airbus A330 instead of smaller planes such as Boeing 737s with just 160 seats.
The airlines say they will have enough employees on hand to handle the extra passengers.
The Transportation Security Administration is also adjusting staffing, said spokesman Mike England. Wait times at security checkpoints have increased this year, and passengers can expect longer delays during the holidays, he said. Holiday travelers slow the process when they overstuff carry-on bags, which makes them harder to screen.
The delays Wednesday came as a record number of travelers were also hitting the roads.
With the average price of gasoline just over two dollars a gallon, more than 91 million travelers will drive.
Jennifer Lipman and her husband made the the seven-hour drive from Massachusetts to Maryland.
"We assumed we were leaving at the worst time and we were prepared for the worst of but so far it's been great," Marty Lipman said.
Robert Sinclair Jr., of AAA, said nearly one-third of the U.S. population is expected to travel through Christmas and New Years.
"This is without a doubt a record breaking holiday travel season," Sinclair said
For the first time, AAA predicts the number of people making a journey of 50 miles or more between Christmas and New Year's will top 100 million, marking the seventh consecutive year of growth.
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