The media coverage of the recent snowstorm in Denver reminded me of something that I've noticed for many years. Whenever there's a major event that shuts down an airport that is an airline hub, the media always reports how many flights are canceled, but they never mention the fact that the vast majority of the affected passengers/flights are on airline X or Y.

For example, in the many hours and column-inches of national media coverage of the Denver airport closing this week, never once did I see mention of the fact that almost all affected passengers are on United or Frontier.

This observation is not unique to this week -- when there's trouble at DFW it's rare to hear American mentioned, when there's trouble in Seattle it's rare to hear Alaska mentioned, etc.

As frequent flyers, we all know that there are a handful of "fortress hub" cities where a problem is really going to affect one airline. Does the media have some kind of inter-corporation "code of silence" that says they won't name airlines by name, even though that information is highly relevant to the story? Or are the reporters just clueless, unaware that (for example) bad weather in Denver is going to cause huge problems for UA and F9 passengers, but virtually no one else?