March 29, 2024

Bone-Chilling Cold a Crippling Blow to Air Travel

Compounding the issue, at least for one airline, were new regulations requiring more rest time for pilots that began at the beginning of the year.

JetBlue Airways said the combination of bad weather and the new Federal Aviation Administration rules led it to cancel all of its flights into and out of Boston and the three New York area airports for 17 hours starting Monday afternoon.

The regulations made airlines build more leeway into their already tight pilot scheduling. Once the delays hit, some pilots who formerly would have been available to fly were not allowed to.

“In the midst of us repairing those schedules disrupted by this week’s winter storms, we’re facing an additional challenge as new F.A.A. rules went into effect for crew rest,” JetBlue said in a statement.

The biggest impact on the airlines was in the Northeast and the Midwest, where polar weather swooped in. Airlines canceled 4,400 flights on Monday, bringing the total to more than 18,000 since last Thursday, according to FlightView.com, a flight information website.

The delays, during one of the busiest travel periods of the year, marooned thousands of people trying to return home from holiday trips, begin a new school term or get back to work. Fans of Florida State and Auburn scrambled to find their way to Pasadena, Calif., for college football’s national championship game at the Rose Bowl Monday night.

One traveler, Courtney Morrissey, said she was supposed to start a new job on Monday in Denver but has been stuck in Rochester since last Thursday after three different flights she had rebooked were canceled. She is now scheduled to fly on Wednesday.

“I am not holding my breath,” Ms. Morrissey said. “Every time they put me on a new flight now, I expect that to be canceled.”

Widespread cancellations are increasingly common in the airline industry, which relies on the hub-and-spoke model of connecting flights. Airlines also now operate on a much tighter schedule, leaving them with little slack, and have few spare planes to rebook passengers.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy forced airlines to cancel more than 20,000 flights over a four-day period.

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport was hit the hardest, with more than 1,600 flights canceled on Monday as temperatures fell below minus 12 degrees.

United Airlines operated a pared-down schedule as ground workers and bag handlers could not stay more than 15 minutes on the tarmac. Refueling operations also took longer than usual, said Mary Ryan, a United spokeswoman.

JetBlue stopped all service from 5 p.m. Monday to 10 a.m. Tuesday from Logan Airport in Boston and from Kennedy International, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International Airport in the New York area. The airline warned of the effect of the new Federal Aviation Administration regulations on service.

The new rules mandate a minimum rest period for pilots of 10 hours before they report for duty, up from eight hours, and includes a provision that they get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. It also limits the number of hours a pilot can fly and sets cumulative flight duty limits.

“These rules further impact our ability to operate an already disrupted schedule, causing our pilots to ‘time out’ even sooner,” JetBlue said. “As a result, additional cancellations are likely to occur as we work to reset the operation.”

Capt. Sean Cassidy, a first vice president at the Air Line Pilots Association, said it was too soon to know what impact, if any, the new rules had on the recent cancellations. Airlines have had nearly two years to plan for the new regulations.

“It’s rather unfortunate that the day the new rule change became mandatory happens to coincide with this massive weather system,” Mr. Cassidy said. “It is very difficult to extrapolate.”

Still, Mr. Cassidy added, “some airlines were better prepared than others, that’s fair to say.”

Jessica Bidgood contributed reporting from Boston and Frances Robles from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/business/frigid-weather-cripples-air-travel-system.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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