Big snowstorm took toll on Delta, AirTran flights

By Kelly Yamanouchi

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With their operations socked for days by the January snowstorm that hit Atlanta, the three biggest airlines in the market canceled nearly 5,000 flights in the month and had the industry's three highest cancellation rates.

Delta Air Lines canceled 6.4 percent of its flights in January, while affiliate Atlantic Southeast Airlines canceled 9.3 percent of its flightss. AirTran Airways canceled 6.1 percent of its flights in the month.

In the same month a year earlier, Delta canceled 1.9 percent of its flights. .

The January flight cancellations totaled 2,989 for Delta, 1,219 for Atlantic Southeast Airlines and 790 for AirTran, according to a U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics report covering the nation's 29 biggest airports..

Delta spokesman Anthony Black said most of Delta's flight cancellations for the month were due to the snowstorm the week of Jan. 9.

AirTran spokesman Christopher White called the January results a "nature-driven anomaly."

On Jan. 10, one Delta flight was stuck on the tarmac at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for about three-and-a-half hours before it was canceled. On that wintry day in Atlanta, Flight 2523 was bound for sunny Honolulu, but never got off the ground.

"We operated with considerable delays throughout the day because of the frozen wintry mix," Black said.

With the snowstorm followed by freezing rain, the deicing process was taking a long time that day and the plane was called back to the gate, Black said. Then, he said, with congestion on taxiways and icy conditions on the ramp, the plane had difficulty getting back to the gate within the three-hour window allowed for tarmac delays under a new federal rule.

Under the federal tarmac delay rule in effect since last year, violators could be fined up to $27,500 per passenger, but there are exceptions for safety or security issues and other reasons. Black said Delta has submitted information to the DOT on the conditions and is awaiting the agency's response.