Bad Weather Flight Operations
 

So there's this snowstorm coming to NY tomorrow. Airlines are already starting to cancel flights into NY. I have a friend flying into EWR from SAT on CO. CO already cancelled that non-stop. I put her on an early connecting flight through IAH.

She could get stuck there, but here's my theory:

CO would prioritize what few slots were available through the weather into EWR for 1)international flights, and 2)flights from their domestic hubs.

Is this a reasonable theory?

I would imagine that CO would prioritize so that it can get its ops back up as quickly as possible, not have planes diverted, which is expensive.

UA recently had a decent experience at ORD because they cancelled flights proactively and were back up quickly because they had a handle on their ops. I would imagine CO will do the same.

Assuming the forecasters are correct (8-14 inches of snow), and given my past experiences in these situations, I would say that the only flights that stand a reasonable chance of moving are the internationals. CO seems to be quite loathe in cancelling these flights.

But as for domestics, they tend to prioritize flights heading to other hub cities (IAH, CLE), probably in the hopes that the other hubs can accomodate at least some of the affected pax. But again, this is only based upon my experiences over the last two years with CO at EWR, so take my info. at face value.