Dec 22, 2007 11:37 am US/Eastern
Weather Humbugs Holiday Travelers
BOSTON (CBS) ―
The holiday icon at play in Boston today wasn't Santa Claus spreading good cheer, but the Grinch - foiling the travel plans of thousands as snow caused more than 150 flight cancellations.
Passengers on one Delta flight to Los Angeles said they spent several hours on the tarmac before being told the plane would not be taking off.
Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton told The Boston Globe that among the problems Thursday were unexplained delays in de-icing aircraft.
New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts bore the brunt of the latest storm, with some areas getting up to 9 inches of snow.
President Bush has authorized the use of military air space to help ease the expected air traffic jams of holiday flights, reports CBS News correspondent Joie Chen.
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said Wednesday that the Defense Department will open 110,000 square miles of normally off-limits military airspace to commercial flights along the Atlantic seaboard before and after Christmas. Western military airspace will also open up for flights into and out of Southern California, reports USA Today.
Every little bit helps.
Over the past five years air travel has increased steadily - this year there will be more than 6.2 million flights.
The percentage of problems is also up. This year almost 24 percent, or about one in four flights, will be delayed - the highest rate in the past decade.
Critics say the airlines have not kept up with demand, by trimming budgets and staff while operating costs soar.
But the industry blames an antiquated air traffic control system.
"The fact is that the carriers are adding positions, adding people, adding new ways of accommodating passengers wherever they can," John Meenehan, executive vice president and COO of the Air Transport Association, told CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan.
And there seems to be more passengers. Holiday bookings are up nearly 8 percent, but airline capacity is up just over one percent.
The upshot? Increased demand allows the airlines to increase fares. The average ticket is up $20 this year, but higher fares haven't grounded holiday travelers.
But then there's the weather.
Hundreds of flights were delayed by bad weather in New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey.
At Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, dense fog caused airlines to cancel 200 flights.
Airport spokesman Gregg Cunningham said flights in and out of the nation's second-busiest airport delayed about an hour.
But Atlanta fared better: even with light rain and fog, flights were barely affected.
And wait times at security gates, through which more than 1.8 million people will pass during Christmas week, were usually less than 10 minutes.
"The biggest push we've seen this morning was about a 32-minute wait time and that was about 7:30 this morning, but as for now wait times are down to about five minutes," Atlanta airport spokesman Herschel Grangent said.
In Los Angeles, the sheer crush of holiday travelers created long lines and missed flights.
One traveler in Los Angeles, foiled by a cancelled flight to a family reunion, decided to rent a car to drive to Las Vegas, to get a flight to Ft. Lauderdale there.
And so the annual juggle of flights, fares and family reunions goes on.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
