In San Diego, last Thursday, January 21, Southwest Airlines (WN) canceled a large number of its Boeing 737 flights due to severe weather conditions, including micro bursts, pounding rains, high winds, lightening and thunder.
At San Diego International Airport (SAN), where Southwest accounts for 33% of all flight operations, the impact of the cancellations was huge. As many as 63 departures, and an equal number of arrivals showed red "canceled" notices on the flight information boards. The scrapped flights started as early as 8:30 A.M., with Phoenix (PHX) and San Antonio (SAT) departures, and continued sporadically throughout the morning.
CAPTIONS: (ABOVE LEFT) Children playing in the rain (Image Credit - Google Images); (BELOW RIGHT TOP) Lightening strike (Phtot Credit - Google Images); (BELOW LEFT) Recent satellite weather map (Photo Credit - National Weather Service); (BELOW RIGHT BOTTOM) Southwest Airlines 737 taking off at sunset (Photo redit - Joel Siegfried)
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The heaviest cancellations came between 11:00 A.M. and 10:30 P.M. with almost no Southwest flights operating. In additional to Phoenix (PHX) and San Antonio (SAT), the affected destinations included Albuquerque (ABQ), Austin (AUS), Baltimore (BWI), Chicago Midway (MDW), Denver (DEN), El Paso (ELP), Houston (HOU), Kansas City (MCI), Las Vegas (LAS), Nashville (BNA), Oakland (OAK), Reno (RNO), Sacramento (SMF), San Jose (SJC), San Francisco (SFO), and Tucson (TUC).
Sporadic flights that did operate were late by as much as two hours. As most of the departures were turn around flights, waiting for inbound equipment, the airline's arrivals were equally impacted. Some inbound flights with San Diego destinations were diverted to other airports, as distant as Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), where passengers on a flight from Oakland to San Diego ended up.
Other carriers operating from San Diego
fared better, with almost no impact on their schedules, except for a few cancellations by American Eagle and Sky West Airlines to LAX, and two United Airlines flights to Washington Dulles (IAD) and San Francisco (SFO).
California airports most heavily impacted by the storms included Burbank, (BUR), Orange County John Wayne (SNA), Los Angeles (LAX), Oakland (OAK), San Diego (SAN), and San Francisco (SFO).
In a telephone interview with Brandy King, spokesperson for Southwest Airlines, when asked by the San Diego Airport Examiner why Southwest was so affected by the storms, while other carriers continued their operations, Ms. King replied, "We made the decision to halt our operations for the safety and comfort of our passengers."
Tell us your thoughts, especially if you were affected by flight cancellations this week, or recently. Please leave comments below or by email and subscribe to get future updates.
Comments
The country has just been having the most bizarre weather. My parents live in AZ and had floods like they've never seen.
Good article Joel. You're really coming up with information that should make the airport and airlines say, "I want him on my staff." Good job.
The world is ending! Just kidding...great article, Joel. You can take something like flight cancellations and really tie together why and how. Hats off.
Albuquerque was having its own issues and closed for a while.
Conditions were fine in NY. Sorry San Diego had to experience these delays... it's so disappointing when travel plans are disrupted!
Great article, Joel. You tie everything together beautifully.
I hope some of these storms come to Chicago in the form of snow.
I fly a lot and thought your report was interesting and well done.TX
Crazy, crazy weather. Last week in upstate NY there was no snow on the ground in Rochester and Buffalo, and San Diego is getting wild storms. You know how bad it was if flights were cancelled. Good reporting!
I fly a lot and thought your report was interesting and well done.
sim so dep
Completely understand what your stance in this matter. Although I would disagree on some of the finer details, I think you did an awesome job explaining it. Sure beats having to research it on my own. Thanks. Anyway, in my language, there are not much good source like this.
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