DLASflyer

Interesting article in the Seattle Times today about airline operations during the recent historic snow storm. Delta canceled only 7 flights while Alaska canceled 40-70 percent some days. Delta attributes its success to not relying on contractors at SeaTac and bringing in extra staff from other hubs in advance. They were able to accommodate thousands of displaced passengers from two airlines in particular. Well done DL!

https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...nds-snowstorm/

ab2013

Probably not going to influence the airline loyalty much in Seattle though.

ethernal

Kudos to Delta. I'm a bit surprised honestly. I figured they were still in "minimum viable operations" mode and wouldn't incur the extra cost of bringing in extra staff or doing their regular IRROPS magic of days old.

Delta must be increasingly confident of their position (current and future passenger demand + cash on hand) to be investing in things like this again.

At the very least, I'm hopeful this means that events like the Thanksgiving and Christmas meltdowns were truly COVID-related one-offs than an emergent trend..

Eastbay1K

Not defending or thrashing any airline here. Just providing a few thoughts to ponder. "Relying on contractors?" Doesn't AS contract with a wholly owned subsidiary for most of its ground ops? "Bringing in extra staff from other hubs?" AS doesn't have spare hub staff that even remotely resembles what DL has. Both SEA and PDX were frozen. I'd not be surprised if the commute for thousands of AS employees in the PNW became impossible, from the pilots to the FAs to the ground support.

I post this as a "victim" of getting stuck @ PDX years ago on a day when AS/QX shut down ops while pretty much every other airline was operating. The rail line into the airport was frozen. It was frustrating as all could be to watch. On the other hand, just leaving the airport (took about two hours to get a bus to get to the functioning end of the rail line to then get into the city center. Taxis, etc. were not available) made it clear that there was no practical way that AS could safely get enough employees to the airport, and then made reasonably sure they could get home.

BenA

The really gnarly weather from this storm was in PDX, not SEA; I wonder if that is a primary driver of the differences here. Delta’s SEA operation is relatively independent while AS flows many aircraft between their dual SEA and PDX hubs on a given day. It wouldn’t surprise me if the knock-on effects from PDX were a primary factor in many of the AS cancellations...

Raymoland

Seattle had one of the 10 snowiest days on record. PDX had bad weather too but saying this was primarily a PDX event is not really accurate.