At noon time in Houston, winds were down to 25 mph and there were clear skies. That's better than it's supposed to be -- I think the storm is moving faster than they thought -- but ops should be no problem tomorrow barring some strange power problem or something.

Looks like mainline operations are scheduled to resume Sunday, though COEX won't be up until Monday:

http://www.continental.com/company/n...eradvisory.asp

I'm about 10mi north of IAH, everything's in good shape. Power came back in south montgomery county around 1pm.

Yeah, the small town in southeast Texas where I grew up has had a lot of major damage. Fortunately my family there is okay. Had this thing come in 90 miles west of where it did Houston would have had another Alicia-type situation, if not worse. Once again, Houston was very fortunate. I can't say the same about those to the north of the Beaumont/Port Arthur area. You're not seeing the major damage up Highways 96 and 69 north of Beaumont yet because the media can't get there -- the roads are totally impassable. But from what I've been told by family members in the area who have been directly affected, there is a lot of structural damage, along with thousands of trees down, many on houses and businesses.

Thanks for the update. Yes, after a major hurricane, you usually don't hear about the badly damaged places for a day or two because communications are usually too poor to "broadcast" the destruction.

Interesting that they're cancelling CoEx flights tomorrow at IAH. Last I saw, windspeed at IAH was down to 10 mph, with "gusts" in the low 20s. RJs usually need somewhat better weather conditions than larger jets to operate, but it seems doubtful that conditions would be too rough for them tomorrow. I guess they didn't want to risk ferrying the aircraft back this evening (wind conditions were definitely gustier a few hours ago).

I will repeat it again. I think CO did a very bad job of reaccommodating passengers on Friday. It seems to me that CO should have looked at both NW and DL flights and rebooked as available (if all CO flights with alternative routings were sold out). The hurricane only affected the IAH area. I can not believe that all NW and DL flights were sold out on Friday am at 6am. Whether the flights were code share or not, NW and DL are CO partners and CO should have reaccommodated on those partners or at least looked at their availability. CO did neither in my case.

I do not know why CO even has a relationship with NW or DL (other than NW put up money at one time and has rights over CO). These relationships are so weak they are worthless. Certainly this coming winter NW is going to have some snowed in airports and would want to reaccommodate their passengers on CO.

Hopefully in the end, with more consolidation, a small player like CO will be combined or absorbed and be part of a very large carrier.

combined or absorbed?

considering CO and AA are the only legacies not in bankrupcy at the moment, I think CO should be in acquire and liquidate mode, as opposed to being combined or absorbed.

Does anyone remember the FAA rule for reaccommodation due to weather? I know that if you have a mechanical issue and the airline can not get you a flight within four hours, they need to reaccommodate you on another carrier. In the case this weekend CO could not provide a flight for 2 days (from DCA to SAN). What is the FAA rule or is it just could business sense. DCA to SAN has so many options, not only NW and DL, but also other CO partner's like AS.

I know for example that at ORD, that CO is willing to accommodate you on UA when there are weather delays and cancellations. CO put me on UA a few months ago due to continue weather delays at EWR. The agreement is such that UA agrees to accept the fare and gets that portion of the fare - so no out of pocket for CO - other than the refund of that portion - which this past weekend - basically all CO wanted to do was refunds.

Unless you know otherwise, I would not speculate that NW and DL were not sold out on Friday. There were hoards of people getting out of town, and it would not surprise me in the least if all available flights were oversold.

My friends and I were on various flights to LAS on Friday (from CLE). All of which were oversold due to overall demand and reroutes. VDB offers on my flight were getting $300 and a reroute on the HP direct flight (they lost my interest as soon as I heard HP) and my buddies earlier flight was getting offers of $500, F on the late flight (8 hours later) and a SWU. Now that is something I would have taken!

I can only imagine what else they were offering throughout the system as they tried to get customers to their destinations.

Well i Can tell you that I was scheduled to fly HNL to TPA via IAH on friday. Went in person to HNL thursday, phone was useless, and was told by counter personal that they "could not" put me on another airline. I was on a govt Y fare. When I asked about finding my own alternatives, I was told if some one would take me they would endorse the ticket. 2 minutes later UA ok'd the transfer traveling via ORD. Took 3 trips between the 2 counters to get everything taken care of. CO kept running me in circles for some reason.

Now if I can figure out how to get CO to credit my sky miles account for the canx flight all would be good.

Repeat it...or repeat it again?

Believe it - not only was DL sold out Friday AM, they brought a 757 in Thursday evening to replace an MD-80 for the first morning flight to ATL - and it was full. AA did the same - replaced a few MD80/738's with 757's Friday morning - full, too. Don't know what NW did, but they only have DC-9's and A319/20s into IAH, and they are usually pretty full on any typical Friday morning....likely more so when there is a government ordered evacuation in progess...

AA even ran a couple of widebodies between IAH and DFW and they were full.

I wasn't talking about in/out of Texas. AA added the flights to help people get out. What I am talking about is a Friday morning trip from DCA to SAN.

Lots of options more the NW and DL. Another option is CO FF partner Alaska. Possible to fly DCA-LAX non-stop on Alaska Airlines, then LAX-SAN on AA Eagle, another CO codeshare partner. It likely is my fault for not suggesting these other options. In my case, the Plat Elite line only checked for CO flights.

Again, I would like to know the FAA rules. If UA would take the fare (which they do out of ORD), then no loss to CO - they already loss by refunding the money. UA flies non-stop IAD-SAN so that could have been an option. I doubt the nonstops BWI or IAD to SAN were impacted much by the loss of the IAH flights.