UPDATE: IRROPS in SEA - Forest Fires
 

I have to fly through there tomorrow around noon on my way to SEA. Anyone have any insight?

I’m thinking about changing to a DTW connection.

4-5 inches of rain for ATL likely, higher amounts locally not out of the question. But not really gonna see any of the tropical force winds here. I doubt we'll even see a GDP. It'll just be a slow-moving low pressure system by that point, with lots of rain.

That said, if we get that much rain, you're likely to see infrastructure-type delays with flights. Crew / gate agent shuttle buses running late due to flooded roads, etc. Baggage / catering trucks behind schedule. Everything slows down. Next thing you know, your ATL-TYS inbound equipment is running behind. How long is your connection? Can you SDC to an earlier TYS-ATL flight?

Unless it's windy, I doubt the rain will mess up operations. If things do get delayed/canceled Delta will let you change to connect through Detroit. Plus worse case scenario you could always rent a car and drive to ATL and pick up your ATL-SEA flight.

Side note: These kinds of threads make me happy! It's a welcome change from all the COVID talk. It reminds me that people are still traveling and gives me a slight sense of normalcy. Thank you!

Good thought, I'll call them now...I only had an hour layover in ATL.

UPDATE: I changed to the first flight (6:15am) out of TYS and have a 2hr.45min connection in ATL. Fingers crossed!

As others have said, may be a bit slow, but shouldn't be too bad. Mainly just a rain event for ATL.

If however, you're able to build in a bit more connection time, that wouldn't be the worst thing.

Good luck! It's currently looking like ATL should be out of the heavy rain by 10-11am ish. Crosswinds of less than about 10kts shouldn't be too much of an issue either. But your arrival from TYS into ATL in the morning may be a bit bumpy with gusty winds.

ATC is the big wildcard on how they decide to handle spacing into ATL

Never fly through ATL, only to it.

Instructions unclear, I now live at ATL. :confused:

You realize this is the Delta board?

UPDATE: No problems getting into, or out of, ATL this morning, except for a bumpy ride!

However, the pilot on DL 709 to SEA just announced that we would be stopping in SLC for fuel because of possible delays getting into SEA because of visibility concerns from the forest fires. I, of course, knew before his announcement thanks to Flightaware!

Glad I didn’t take up Avis on their offer to ‘modify’ my rental car reservation for an additional $150 to pick up my car TWO hours earlier!

Sun's already peeking out in my area of ATL, didn't get much other than just a steady rain.

Maybe the sun feels particularly welcome since DL isn't currently serving ice on domestic flights

That's very surprising and quite frankly doesn't make much sense. ATL-SEA should be pretty easy with a 739 in the summer with plenty of holding time even with a full passenger load (much less a 60% pax load - although I guess they could be at MTOW with cargo). I could see them having a planned fuel stop if things appeared to worsen on the way, but SEA has had no arrival delay in place for much of the morning.

Anyone know what non-smoke impacted alternatives would be? Is it just an issue that the alternative airports are 500+ miles away?

yep, glad you guys got the sarcasm.