Airlines started canceling flights in the Northeast as the weekend approached, and the big New York City airports actually shut down until Monday, as did Philadelphia's airport. If you were scheduled to fly in, out or through those airports, you know that finding new flights was a real challenge since airlines canceled early and often.
Did Irene affect you? Share photos, video, but stay safe
So why did the airlines cancel so many flights when many more could have gone with ease? It's a combination of logistics, Boy Scout-like overpreparedness, and probably a little dash of fear of government-imposed penalties.
It seems simple in theory. The airlines should just keep flying until the weather gets too bad, and then stop, right? If only it were that easy. There were a few things working against them. First were the preparations in the surrounding areas. Mandatory evacuations and the shutdown of public transit in some metro areas meant that actually getting workers to the airport would have been nearly impossible. Remember, once that last flight leaves, there's still a lot of support staff required, and many of them rely on public transit.
Beyond that, the airlines wanted to make sure they cleared all their airplanes out of the area. So if a flight was scheduled to arrive in New York at 1 p.m. Saturday, it easily could have operated. But then, the airplane would have had to fly out of New York as well, to avoid potential damage from high winds and flooding.
It's better to cancel flights over the weekend than to have airplanes out of service for weeks. Just ask Frontier, which saw several airplanes damaged by hail during a summer thunderstorm in Denver. It took a long time to get all those airplanes flying again. Nobody wants to take that chance when there's a big storm approaching. Even a big jet can get spun around on the ground in a stiff wind, and who knows what it might hit.
Did Irene affect you? Share photos, video, but stay safe
So why did the airlines cancel so many flights when many more could have gone with ease? It's a combination of logistics, Boy Scout-like overpreparedness, and probably a little dash of fear of government-imposed penalties.
It seems simple in theory. The airlines should just keep flying until the weather gets too bad, and then stop, right? If only it were that easy. There were a few things working against them. First were the preparations in the surrounding areas. Mandatory evacuations and the shutdown of public transit in some metro areas meant that actually getting workers to the airport would have been nearly impossible. Remember, once that last flight leaves, there's still a lot of support staff required, and many of them rely on public transit.
Beyond that, the airlines wanted to make sure they cleared all their airplanes out of the area. So if a flight was scheduled to arrive in New York at 1 p.m. Saturday, it easily could have operated. But then, the airplane would have had to fly out of New York as well, to avoid potential damage from high winds and flooding.
It's better to cancel flights over the weekend than to have airplanes out of service for weeks. Just ask Frontier, which saw several airplanes damaged by hail during a summer thunderstorm in Denver. It took a long time to get all those airplanes flying again. Nobody wants to take that chance when there's a big storm approaching. Even a big jet can get spun around on the ground in a stiff wind, and who knows what it might hit.
