Traveling through a US winter

[Ralphie]

Husband and I have decided it's time to start planning a Christmas escape and we're looking at traveling to the US to do it. There'll be a bit of criss crossing of the country (Anaheim, NYC, Phoenix, Las Vegas among other places) and the only real thing concerning us is the problems of traveling in winter - such as being snowed in at airports.

Now obviously the weather cannot be helped or wished away but I was wondering if anyone had any tips on limiting its effect or limiting our chances of sleeping in an airport!? Our mock itinerary is flexible and wouldn't be traveling on "crucial" dates.

 

[RooFlyer]

I travel in Canada a lot so have their systems down pat; US airlines should have similar tools:

Air Canada has a "Daily travel outlook" web page

"On my way" is a must for me.

And of course "flight notifications".

The airports that tend to have the greatest problems in winter are those on the margin of the snow/ice zone; if there is an 'artic blast', they don't have the gear to clear runways / de-ice planes at the rates required. For instance, Calgary rarely has significant delays whereas Vancouver grinds to a halt with a sprinkling of snow/ice.

 

[Comoman]

Husband and I have decided it's time to start planning a Christmas escape and we're looking at traveling to the US to do it. There'll be a bit of criss crossing of the country (Anaheim, NYC, Phoenix, Las Vegas among other places) and the only real thing concerning us is the problems of traveling in winter - such as being snowed in at airports.

Now obviously the weather cannot be helped or wished away but I was wondering if anyone had any tips on limiting its effect or limiting our chances of sleeping in an airport!? Our mock itinerary is flexible and wouldn't be traveling on "crucial" dates.

I personally avoid the northern hubs in winter if I possibly can. Denver, Chicago, New York/Washington. If flying One World Dallas has been ok for me. However the problem is bad weather somewhere invariably had a knock-on effect nationwide unfortunately....

 

[russ]

Husband and I have decided it's time to start planning a Christmas escape...

You're a bit late!

 

[Ralphie]

I know. I wish I'd escaped the Christmas we've just had!

 

[Ralphie]

Apologies for the naivety of my questions, btw, I've travelled a bit but usually in reasonably controlled or easy environments.

What tends to cause the people sleeping in airports, is it people not having accommodation access or is it that the airlines are not particularly informative and keep you waiting around?

 

[RooFlyer]

Flight delayed .. delayed ... delayed ... delayed .. CANCELLED and its night now.

 

[Himeno]

Apologies for the naivety of my questions, btw, I've travelled a bit but usually in reasonably controlled or easy environments.

What tends to cause the people sleeping in airports, is it people not having accommodation access or is it that the airlines are not particularly informative and keep you waiting around?

Early morning flight, don't want to leave a hotel and work out check out and transport at 2am.
Short overnight connections. No point booking a hotel when you'd only be there for 3 hours.
People looking to save some $$.

 

[Orange Freeway Exit 2]

It has been unseasonably warm on the East Coast this winter.....it was over 70F (22C) the other day. San Francisco has colder summers than that!!!!

You wont have any problems in Vegas, Phoenix or LA....NYC on the other hand can have blizzard conditions at times, but in my experience they do seem to be more prevalent later in the winter - January to early February.

 

[jgm]

We travel to N.A. most years to ski in the US & Canada, and have NEVER had a problem. Most years it is only 2 or 3 domestic flights each way. Mostly we don't go any further east than DEN, but even at the smaller airports FCA, HDN, YXC etc we haven't had issues other than the occasional slight delays.

 

[exceladdict]

What tends to cause the people sleeping in airports, is it people not having accommodation access or is it that the airlines are not particularly informative and keep you waiting around?

Flight delayed .. delayed ... delayed ... delayed .. CANCELLED and its night now.

Early morning flight, don't want to leave a hotel and work out check out and transport at 2am.
Short overnight connections. No point booking a hotel when you'd only be there for 3 hours.
People looking to save some $$.

This and This. Check my TR below for a few examples of reroutings - I have personally had a hard time with JFK and DFW airports - had two flights involving DFW cancelled/delayed. My previous trip to the US was the 2013/14 polar vortex where DCA was shut down, but we managed to get out on time. It shows that even the airports that are 'prepared' sometimes need to close.

Do you have status with any airline or the ability to fly in F? As a QF SG (OWE) I had it pretty easy, even during major delays we were in the lounge most of the time so the lounge angels looked after us - no mosh pits at the AA rebooking centres. Compared to my previous trip as a PS - this was amazing.

My advice would be don't plan on multiple connecting flights in a day unless there's lots of capacity in the schedule (i.e. don't book the last flight out), and stick to one carrier so your baggage can be checked through during connections.

But to some extent, there's not much you can do other than have travel insurance with a low excess.

 

[serfty]

I've been flying AA around (mainly SW) USA the last few days and have seen issues first hand.

DFW had snow on Monday and AA could not cope. Standby lists 50+ in length ... across the country.

I had on flight delayed by 80 minutes with fare buckets basically 0's.

Expertflyer paid for its annual subscription with that alone.

 

[earlyriser]

I guess it is just the luck of the draw/weather. I travel to the US yearly during Nov/Dec and the only big issue I experienced was just over one month ago when going Sydney to Chicago when they had their first real snow of the year. We ended up arriving 7 hours late and had to take an extra plane to Iowa City to eventually get to Chicago but our luggage somehow did not get to us until 56 hours later. Luckily we were proactive and waited in line for over an hour in Iowa City otherwise we would have ended up not being switched to the last plane to Chicago for the night.

With the cities listed by the OP, I would not be too worried. Went back and forth across the north of the country before and after Christmas 2014 and had no issues at all. If a big snow storm happens to come there is not much you can do about it.

 

[drron]

Unfortunately no one can accurately predict the weather next Christmas and if a severe storm it really doesn't matter which airport you are using there will be problems.But in General those places that regularly have large snowfalls are better equipped than those with irregular snowfalls.For us it was December 2012.Flying NRT-DFW on AA.An icestorm hit most of the US.The plane from DFW was cancelled but the ORD plane got out even though much worse conditions there than DFW-they are equipped to handle it.We were put on the ORD service.

In general the northern states handle snow well.We have driven several times in winter without problems.They are very efficient clearing roads.And that is even minor roads.Only once did we change our trip and that was in a blizzard near Washington DC.I felt OK but couldn't trust some of the idiots who wouldn't slow down.Saw several innocents taken out when the idiots lost control so we stayed well short of our intended plan.

 

[Ralphie]

Cheers for all the shared experiences. I know you can't predict weather or mitigate it if it hits hard, but just want to travel as best prepared as we could.

The tentative itinerary has been planned on direct flights as much as possible, paid F class flights where possible (silly me never thought of signing up for the FF programs of US carriers, except to transfer Delta flight points to my Velocity account) and doing New York early in the trip, and of course travel insurance, which should put us in as good a spot as we can be.

Thanks again for the always valuable advice here.

 

[Mattg]

Apologies for the naivety of my questions, btw, I've travelled a bit but usually in reasonably controlled or easy environments.

What tends to cause the people sleeping in airports, is it people not having accommodation access or is it that the airlines are not particularly informative and keep you waiting around?

I once slept in a US airport during the northern hemisphere winter. It was a combination of bad luck and horrible communication on the part of AA. I was supposed to fly from DCA to MIA at about 7am. My flight was cancelled due to a snow storm in Washington DC so I was rebooked via RDU on a ~7pm flight. After waiting all day at the airport the flight to RDU eventually departed 2 or 3 hours later than scheduled. Of course, I missed my connection to MIA from RDU which was also the last flight of the day. By the time I landed in RDU all of the AA staff had packed up and gone home. I wasn't able to contact anyone from AA, including by phone as their call center was on overdrive. All of the hotels near the airport were 100% full, so even though I had travel insurance which could have paid for a room, there weren't any. I ended up sleeping on the floor at the airport.

I eventually got to MIA the next day having missed my connection to South America. When I followed up with AA, they were adamant that I was not owed any compensation but offered me a $150 voucher as a "gesture of goodwill". I was not impressed. Oh, and I was flying in First class on a paid ticket.

In these kind of situations I'm not really sure what you can do, but travel insurance is surely a must. Avoiding the big hub airports would probably help to, and try not to be on a tight schedule. The whole situation would have been less stressful for me had I not had an onwards connection in MIA.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Guaranteed you're trip will be impacted by weather at some stage. There's nothing you can do about that. Have a series of options for destinations that you can action when in the country. You must be flexible with travel dates and locations.

 

[BAM1748]

Travel to the US in winter a bit, it's good fun.

Airports are set up for winter unlike many in Europe and although there are and will be delays they sort through them fairly rapidly to keep people moving.

The longest delay I have ever had was LAX for 5 hours in winter because of the weather (high winds) at the destination airport, AA was good and kept me informed through out offering me alternative to nearby by cities incase I wanted to get closer and hire a car.

When you do work out your plan post it up and I'm sure we can all give our opinions.

LA, Vegas and Phoenix are all drivable and indeed can go Phoenix to LA in a day easy if you don't stop, so maybe consider that as well, then fly NY.

Matt

 

[jehane]

Hi Ralphie

I was living in Ohio for the past 2.5 years - here now on a flying visit to finish packing up my condo and put it on the rental market. So here are my thoughts:

The airports that tend to have the greatest problems in winter are those on the margin of the snow/ice zone; if there is an 'artic blast', they don't have the gear to clear runways / de-ice planes at the rates required. For instance, Calgary rarely has significant delays whereas Vancouver grinds to a halt with a sprinkling of snow/ice.

This is true. Places like NY and OH are well prepared for snow, but Atlanta (major hub for Delta I think) shut down with just a small amount because they had no (or insufficient) de-icing gear. Having said that, the past couple of winters (not this one) were very snowy in the NE.

It has been unseasonably warm on the East Coast this winter.....it was over 70F (22C) the other day. San Francisco has colder summers than that!!!!

This year there is a strong El Nino, which keeps the NE warmer and the SW wetter. After this (northern) winter's strong El Nino, there's a reasonable chance of a La Nina forming next (northern) winter. NOAA has a good page describing the impacts at NWS JetStream - Weather Impacts of ENSO. There's also a lot of discussion whether the colder and snowier winters in the NE represent a "new normal" weather pattern, with a corresponding warmer and drier west coast. Google "arctic blast" and "polar vortex" (misleading, but catchy) for some articles about this.

In terms of delays, Chicago is notorious for weather delays.