Storm: AA cancels 950 flights as Thanksgiving week starts
American Airlines canceled more than 300 flights today as the threat of icy wintry weather threatened its main hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. That comes on top of more than 650 combined Sunday cancellations made by American and regional affiliate American Eagle, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.com.
That is sure to create headaches for thousands of passengers for the airline.
It's also an ominous sign for Thanksgiving travelers. That same storm is forecast to move east and affect operations at some of the nation's busiest — and most delay-prone — airports during the busy travel days ahead of the Thursday holiday.
For today, however, the biggest problem for air travelers is in Texas, where AA and American Eagle had canceled more than 300 flights as of 2:20 p.m. ET, according to FlightAware. Combined with Sunday's disruptions, AA and American Eagle have now canceled just short of 1,000 flights since Sunday.
Nearly all of those have come at American's DFW hub, though the disruption could ripple out and affect AA customers in other parts of the country. A flight from Los Angeles to Seattle, for example, could become delayed or canceled if the aircraft or crew scheduled to operate that flight get bogged down because of the cancellations in Texas.
American spokeswoman Andrea Huguely tells Today in the Sky that the carrier is hopeful flight schedules will only improve from here on out — at least at DFW. Huguely says the forecast for North Texas calls for improving conditions through Tuesday morning.
American hopes to resume normal operations at noon today (Nov. 25) while American Eagle hopes to do so by 4 p.m. ET. Indicating that the carrier's worst disruptions have passed, AA's cancellation totals have changed little since 8:30 a.m. ET this morning.
American has issued a flexible rebooking policy for passengers ticketed to fly through DFW on Sunday or Monday. In short, the policy allows customers to make one change to their itinerary without the standard change penalty or fare difference (read the fine print).
This post will be updated.