Weather history was made this evening in Wisconsin. A rare series of January tornadoes ripped through a county just south of where I live, demolishing buildings and houses, downing power lines and leaving more than a dozen people injured. The ferocious storm also caused delays at area airports including Milwaukee and Chicago’s O’Hare. Totally reasonable. However, there have been many times when I wondered if airlines were telling the truth about weather delays.
For example, a couple of weeks ago United Airlines cancelled 1,200 flights and blamed various winter storms for doing so. But then, a couple of days later United pilots revealed that the carrier was understaffed during the peak travel period, contradicting the airline’s explanation that Mother Nature was to blame. The same incident occurred last week when my friend was trying to get home in time for New Year’s. The airline played the weather card and she was stuck in Chicago for more than 5 hours.
And why wouldn’t an airline blame the weather for delays? These days passenger contracts are written in a way that gives airlines every incentive to blame Mother Nature.
For their part the airlines say they are telling the truth. In regards to the holiday meltdown United Airlines suffered stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers in airports throughout the country, airline reps say they struggled to deal with ice and fog in Chicago and snow at their Denver hub. The only problem is that reports found other airlines flying in and out of those same cities didn’t delay or cancel near as many flights as United did. According to the Department of Transportation, United delayed or canalled twice as many flights as the rest of the industry during the week of Christmas.
So when an airline feeds you the line that weather is causing your flight to be delayed are you getting the whole story? Travel experts say probably not. In most cases weather is only half the story. In United’s case, according to the pilots, the employee shortage was the primary cause of the massive number of delayed and cancelled flights on December 23rd. And given that American Airlines did not post similar cancellation numbers out of O’Hare for the same time periods, they were probably right.
What’s more, if an airline uses the weather card they are virtually off the hook because under most airline contracts weather is considered an “Act of God” and it basically means the carrier owes passengers nothing. Meaning if the airline can blame a delay or cancellation on a storm in Florida (never mind that you are sitting in an airport in Detroit waiting for a flight to Seattle) they don’t have to offer you accommodations, meals or hotel vouchers.
But that’s not all… look for more reasons why the airline might pull the weather card in my next blog.
Related Articles:
Mother Nature vs. Baby New Year
Mother Nature vs. Holiday Travelers
Preparing For Travel Delays–Part 2
Traveling With Young Children: Dos and Don’ts
Traveling With Children-Learn From My Mistakes
Flying with Children: Layover or Not?
Tips To Remember When Traveling With Children