Originally Posted by
Bear96
I was clear about my suggestion several posts ago. Yes, I think that yesterday when the freezing rain forecast became clearer, DL should have made the call to shutter ATL ops for the day - or at least until say noon and reevaluate in the morning with an eye towards possibly restarting things later in the day since the frozen stuff was predicted to change to rain as the day went on. Yes that risks being viewed in retrospect as an overreaction if things didn't turn out to be as bad as expected.
I agree freezing rain, especially in the south, will cause major disruptions.
The main benefit to canceling at least the night before, though there’s a chance you might cancel more than you absolutely had to, is that people know of the need to reroute before heading to the airport.
That either lets you stay home or rebook onto another flight option, even other airlines. You’ll still get to your destination late, but much better than risking thousands of people flying into ATL this morning for a connection that won’t make it.
That’s how you get those images on the news of thousands of people sleeping on the floor.
Canceling more flights a day in advance is much better than canceling anything with passengers in the middle of their journey, already at an airport, especially if the airport is their connecting point.