Daytona Beach International Airport spared amid this week's flight cancellations
DAYTONA BEACH — As passengers at airports nationwide grappled with the frustration of thousands of flight cancellations on Monday tied to brutal winter storms, the outlook was much sunnier at Daytona Beach International Airport.
There, no cancellations were reported among the airport’s dozen or so arrivals and departures to Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth and Charlotte, North Carolina, according to the flight tracking website flightaware.com.
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That 24-hour performance was confirmed by Cyrus Callum, director of Aviation and Economic Resources for county-run Daytona Beach International Airport. At the same time, the airport did experience delays, including some significant ones, earlier in the holiday travel season, he said.
“On Christmas Eve, we suffered a great deal of delays involving some of connecting aircraft coming out of areas affected by the weather,” Callum said. “We had a couple cancellations on Dec. 23rd as well. So ahead of the holiday, there were a handful of flights that were delayed rather significantly because of weather or crew availability.”
Nationally, Southwest passengers faced biggest travel hurdles
The daily schedule at Daytona Beach International consists of 12 to 14 flights anchored by Delta’s nonstop service to Atlanta and American Airlines nonstop service to Dallas-Fort Worth and Charlotte.
Nationally, passengers on Southwest airlines often have faced the biggest hurdles reaching their destinations. The airline has canceled 2,890 flights and delayed 673 others.
On Monday, Southwest announced that it was reducing flights this week to help re-set its operation.
"As we continue the work to recover our operation, we have made the decision to continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one-third of our schedule for the next several days," the airline stated.
Stranded Southwest passengers won’t be able to rebook flights until after December 31, the airline said.
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In Daytona Beach, which isn’t served by Southwest, the outlook is optimistic for the remainder of the holiday travel season, Callum said.
“I’m seeing things stabilizing,” he said. “There have been a variety of issues with Southwest at airports across the country, but as it relates to Delta and American, we’re seeing blue skies as the weather starts to thaw everything out. Still, it’s always very important for travelers to check with their airline first to make sure that aircraft is going to go off on time.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona International avoids flight cancellations tied to winter storms
