Both airlines and passengers lose. One sheds revenue, and the other may not make it home for Thanksgiving. Exactly 222  flights “within, into, or out of the United States” have been cancelled for today so far, according to FlightAware. As a huge storm batters the East Coast, the number will certainly rise sharply

Most cancellations are ones that originate in U.S. East Coast cities. So far today, 51 have been cancelled at Newark Liberty National, 30 from New York City’s La Guardia, 14 from Washington’s Reagan National, 9 from New York’s JFK, and 7 from Boston’s Logan. And the storm will not hit the region in earnest until later today.

The large national airlines which have already canceled the most fights are JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) at 30, Republic at 18, and Delta (NYSE: DAL) at 14

FlightAware’s “Misery Map” shows that many of the cancelled flights were destined for the West Coast, Florida, and the Midwest. Even if airlines can get planes out, they will not fly until Thanksgiving in many cases. A large number of these flights will need to handle scheduled passengers, and those who have tickets for earlier flights. That mean some passengers will not fly at all.

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Aside from the pain the cancellations will cause passengers, airlines will lose revenue because some of the passengers will not re-book. And there are expensive logistics to take planes offline. And, most likely, employees of the airlines will get overtime. The carriers will need to flood desks and gates with extra people to handle to overflow of stranded passengers.

And, then, of course, are the hundreds of passengers who will sleep in the airports tonight, either not able to get home because of the storm, or hoping against hope that they can get some flight out for the weekend. And, for most, that will not happen.

 

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