Palm Springs airport seeing more flight cancellations, delays Friday as storm sweeps US
With clear skies and highs in the 70s on tap just as much of the nation deals with a historic winter storm, the Coachella Valley is looking like a better and better place to be this Christmas. The bad news? Some valley locals looking to fly out in the final days before the holiday might have no choice but to stay put.
While the valley isn't expected to see any wintry action from the storm, its effects continued to be felt at Palm Springs airport Friday with 17 flights already canceled and about two dozen more delayed as of 9:15 a.m. Friday, according to the online flight tracker FlightAware. On Thursday, nine flights out of the airport were canceled while 56 more were delayed.
The flights canceled so far Friday account for about 10% of both the airport's incoming and outgoing schedule. Alaska Airlines, SkyWest Airlines Delta Airlines, and WestJet were the four airlines to cancel flights to or from the airport Friday. Friday's cancellations nixed flights between Palm Springs and four cities: San Francisco; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; and Vancouver, Canada.
The airports in Vancouver and Seattle are dealing with snow and freezing rain. All runways at Seattle's airport were closed at one point Friday morning in what The Seattle Times described as an "unprecedented scenario" that had not occurred in 30 years. One runway reopened at about 7 a.m.
The delays at PSP on Friday affected destinations and departure points as far away as Toronto and Dallas.
The National Weather Service said Friday that the storm, which had brought a nasty combination and subzero temperatures to the Great Plains on Wednesday night and Thursday, was moving east and expected to blanket a large swath of the eastern U.S. from the Great Lakes to New England in heavy snow.
About 4,200 flights had been canceled as of 10 a.m. across the country on Friday, while about 17,000 were delayed. Seattle, Chicago O'Hare, New York LaGuardia and Denver were among the most affected.
At LAX, 31 outgoing flights and 51 incoming ones had been canceled Friday, while eight outgoing flights and six incoming ones had been canceled at Ontario International Airport.
"Winter weather hazards remain in effect from the Canadian border south to the Rio Grande, Gulf Coast and central Florida Peninsula while spanning from the Pacific Northwest to the Eastern Seaboard," the weather service said. As of early Friday, over 240 million people within the United States were under some form of winter weather warning or advisory.
Storm comes as PSP was anticipating record holiday travel
The storm was coming at a bad time for PSP, which announced earlier this month that it was expecting its busiest holiday travel period ever this year. More than 35,000 people were expected to depart from PSP between Dec. 21 and Dec. 26, the airport said with travel expected to peak on Friday, with more than 8,000 people flying out.
At about noon Thursday, airport staff announced on Facebook that the airport’s main parking lot had reached capacity but there was plenty of space remaining in the overflow lot. The airport offers a shuttle service to and from the overflow lot to the terminal. Even before the storm, the airport recommended those looking to check bags arrive at least two-and-a-half hours before their flights as it continues to deal with issues related to baggage handling.
The airport also posted Thursday that travelers should check the status of their flights before heading to the airport given the number of cancelations.
With the storm roiling their operations, most airlines were allowing and even encouraging their customers to cancel or change their flights without paying the usual fees that come with doing so. Southwest, for example, was allowing customers flying through nearly 50 cities to rebook their flights for a new date in the next 14 days for no charge.
The good news: Most of the storm and temperature warnings expire on or before Christmas, meaning that customers returning to the valley after the holiday weekend will likely have a far easier time coming back to Palm Springs than they did leaving it.
Over 20% of PSP flights canceled or delayed Thursday
On Thursday, canceled flights made up about 3% of both the airport's incoming and outgoing schedule while delayed flights accounted for another 21% of the airport's outgoing flights and 25% of those scheduled to arrive at the airport.
The canceled flights were limited to Southwest, WestJet and Alaska Airlines, while all of the airlines with flights serving Palm Springs Wednesday had at least two delays.
Most of the canceled flights Thursday were coming from and heading to places getting hit hard by the winter storm, including Denver and Vancouver and Edmonton, Canada, where temperatures were so cold that the ability to de-ice planes was threatened. Flights to Oakland and from Portland, Oregon, were also canceled. Thursday's delays impacted flights between Palm Springs and cities from Seattle to Atlanta as the storm wreaked havoc across the entire US airline network.
Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Winter storm delays, cancels flights at Palm Springs airport Friday
