holiday travel

Santa arrived. Many other flyers didn’t.

Airlines, ,

No doubt about it.

For everyone except Santa and his reindeer, flying this holiday has been a mess.

There’s so much snow in upstate New York that Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) is staying closed until at least 11 a.m. on Wednesday, December 28.

And the airport’s award-winning snow removal team is so overwhelmed with snow that is has called on other airports to help them deal with this blizzard.

“Our crews are working around the clock and @PITairport will be sending additional snow plowing equipment to assist our team,” the airport shared in a Tweet.

Southwest Airlines Meltown

Thousands of flights have been canceled and all airlines are having a tough time getting passengers and their suitcases from here to there.

But Southwest Airlines operations seem to have broken down – or frozen up – completely.

At 1 am Tuesday morning, FlightAware.com was showing more than 2,600 cancellations within, into, or out of the United States, with most of those being on Southwest Airlines alone.

The airline cancelled more than 2900 flights on Monday and has already canceled 2460 flights for Tuesday.

The next few days may get even worse.

In a media release late Monday, Southwest said, “With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our Customers and Employees in a significant way that is unacceptable.”

The airline said “our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning.” But it added: “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.”

But it may be more serious than that.

Tweets like this were shared Tuesday night from cities all over the country confirming that Southwest customers are being told no flights will be rebooked until after December 31.

As in “next year.”

That means that a lot of people whose flights have already been canceled are going to have to wait even longer to get on a plane.

The Department of Transportation has taken notice, calling Southwest’s rate of cancellations and delays and report of poor customer service “unacceptable” and saying it “will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”

Seasonal news from PIT, LAX, BWI, MKE, PHX & SAN airports

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Whether or not you’re flying during the holidays, it pays to keep up to date with what airports are doing to serve passengers during what is sure to be another unusual season.

Here are some tidbits we’ve already spotted this week.

PIT has its holiday tree up

Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) won’t be having its annual Holiday Open House this year. And local choirs and bands won’t be offering holiday performances.

But PIT is setting up a holiday-themed selfie station in the Airside Center Core and hosting distanced (instrument-only) performances by local musicians. And there will be terminal visits from the PIT PAWS airport therapy dog team.

The holiday tree is already there. Here’s a fun time-lapse video of it going up. PIT reports that 20 people worked to raise the 26-foot-tall tree over a span of eight hours and that this year’s tree has 538 ornaments, 42 yards of fabric, and 166 strands of lights.

Take a 360 Virtual Tour of LAX

Missing airports? Us too. So we’re excited as all get out a new virtual 360-degree of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) airfield.

This is the same airfield tour that used to be offered to students, community groups, and others curious about LAX operations before COVID-19 arrived. Now anyone can access the immersive, high-resolution 360-degree video experience online using a smartphone, tablet, computer, or VR headset.

Coat check reopens at MKE

If you’re flying from Milwaukee to Hawaii, Florida, or some other warm spot, you probably won’t need your winter coat when you arrive.

So, for the second winter in a row, Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Mitchell Internation Airport (MKE) has opened it popular coat check service.

The Coat check program operates in partnership with retail partner Paradies Lagardère and is offered inside the Summerfest Marketplace store, which is located pre-security. Each coat is wrapped in protective plastic and the charge is a very reasonable $2 per day, or $10 per trip.

As far as we know, this is still the only U.S. airport offering this service.

Fresh art at PHX

Fun and games from BWI

New experiences from SAN’s artist-in-residence

And, thanks, LAX for reminding us that it is December. Already.

Heartwarming stories from airports & airlines

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We’ve been reading some charming and heartwarming stories from airports and airlines this holiday week.

Sweet Virgin Atlantic seat-swap

First, there is a viral post on Facebook by a Virgin Atlantic flight attendant relating the story of a passenger named Jack swapping his business class seat on a flight from New York to London for the economy seat booked by 88-year-old Violet.

“Of the hundreds of flights I’ve operated, I’ve had the pleasure of looking after footballers, supermodels and some Hollywood movie stars but let me tell you about my two favourite passengers EVER!,” wrote Leah Amy, “Jack and Violet 💜 (I wish she was called Vera or Rose 🤣)”

She went on to explain that Jack’s entire family was booked in business class. But Jack decided to swap seats with Violet. He then “sat on the row of seats directly next to the economy toilets and never made a peep or asked for anything the rest of the flight. No fuss, no attention, literally did it out of the kindness of his own heart, no one asked him to.”

A great story, right?

Well, the story gets a bit better. In response to the story of Jack and Violet, Virgin Atlantic announced it will be offering complimentary upgrades to “the most seasoned person” on board all its flights through January 1, 2020.

Nice!

Birthday treat at Schiphol Airport

Here’s another heartwarming holiday-season travel story. This one from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (AMS) documenting a great birthday treat they were able to arrange for 94-year-old Granny Miep.

Canadian hospitality

And one more.

Community helps stranded passengers on Christmas Day. (courtesy Karen KayCee/Facebook)

According to the CBC, when 75 passengers got stranded in Deer Lake, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada on Dec. 25, the community came together in “Come from Away” style.

The town welcomed the passengerw, put together a Christmas dinner and made sure they got on their way.

The CBC notes that what happened in Deer Lake is reminiscent of what happened in 2001, when townspeople rallied to welcome thousands of passengers on planes diverted to Gander – which is also in Newfoundland and Labrador – due to the attacks on September 11.

That real-life story is the inspiration for the Tony Award-winning musical “Come From Away.”

In Deer Lake’s case, a plane full of WestJet passengers left Toronto for St. John’s late Christmas Eve but got diverted by bad weather.

Deer Lake isn’t a regular stop for WestJet flights, so there was little in the way support for the passengers once they were on the ground and sent over to the local Holiday Inn Express.

But this was Christmas Day. So local townspeople responded to a call-out on Facebook and rustled up a Christmas Dinner that included everything from sandwiches and cookies to turkey dinner and gravy and homemade rabbit stew.

All great stories, right?

Here’s to great travel and more heartwarming travel stories in 2020.

Airport or the North Pole?

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Airports and airlines are certainly getting into the holiday spirit.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) has a giant walk-through ornament and a mailbox where anyone who has been nice this year can mail their letter to Santa. There’s also indoor snow.

Portland International Airport (PDX) is all decked out with giant snowflakes and cool-looking gifts.

And, looking ahead a bit, if you’re flying on Alaska Airlines on December 20 and own a holiday sweater, this is your chance to wear it.

Courtesy Alaska Airlines

December 20 is National Ugly Sweater Day and, for the third year in a row, Alaska Airlines will be offering flyers wearing any kind of holiday sweater (because “ugly sweater” is in the eye of the beholder) priority boarding on Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights.

And, ugly sweater-fan or not, keep an eye out for the Alaska Airlines “Snowplane” with a fun, winter livery.

See something festive in an airport? Or have something planned?

Let us know.