Wave of canceled flights across US causing Christmas travel headaches at SMF, LAX, SFO

This story has been updated with end-of-day figures for Thursday.

Holiday travel, which is in full swing Thursday and Friday ahead of the Christmas holiday, got no mercy from Mother Nature, as winter storms level a one-two punch for air travel. Those headaches have trickled down to airports in Sacramento and other parts of California.

According to FlightAware, an online flight tracking database, 12,571 domestic flights were canceled or delayed nationwide Thursday due to a “once-in-a-generation” blizzard across the Midwest and an equally frigid storm in the eastern U.S.

Those waves of airline misery are trickling down to California, which saw 233 domestic flights canceled on Thursday, nearly 9% of all scratched flights in the U.S., according to FlightAware.

In Sacramento, 164 flights were affected throughout the day Thursday, including 29 scheduled flights out of SMF by Southwest Airlines, according to FlightAware. For the budget carrier, that represented 15% of all its flights into or out of Sacramento.

“Record-breaking cold and life-threatening wind chills over the Great Plains to overspread the eastern half of the nation by Friday,” according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters also predicted a “bomb cyclone” which has affected hundreds of flights.

On Friday, the misery continued with at least 3,400 domestic flights canceled by 8 a.m. Pacific time Friday. According to FlightAware, California’s five major airports — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego and Sacramento — had seen 262 domestic cancellations, roughly 7.5% of the nation’s canceled flights.

California airports

Although weather conditions in California are relatively tame, airports throughout the Golden State are still experiencing a high number of canceled and delayed flights.

At Sacramento International Airport, there were 34 canceled flights and 130 delays Thursday.

Surrounding Northern California airports have also been slowed. San Francisco International Airport had a total of 299 affected domestic flights — 34 cancellations and 265 delayed flights.

Oakland International Airport another popular airport for Northern California travelers had 158 affected domestic flights — 36 cancellations and 122 delays — according to FlightAware.

In Southern California, LAX currently had 513 affected domestic flights Thursday — 59 canceled flights and 454 delays, two-thirds of which came after noon.

Airports with most cancellations nationwide

Throughout the nation Thursday, there were 6,043 canceled flights — both international and domestic — and 27,102 delayed flights. One in three of those flights were domestic-flagged carriers, such as United, Southwest and American.

Southwest had 23% of all its flights (966) canceled while nearly half of its flights across the U.S. were delayed (48% to 2,005), according to FlightAware. Through noon Friday, Southwest had 919 flights canceled and more than 1,320 delays across the U.S.

“We continue to proactively manage and update our operational plan and flight schedules in response to Winter Storm Elliott,” said Southwest spokesman Chris Perry. “With more than half of the airports where we operate in the continental U.S. under duress from the storm, Southwest has been uniquely affected given our size and structure.”

Here’s a list of airports throughout the nation with the top cancellations and delays according to FlightAware:

• Denver International: 645 canceled flights; 917 delayed flights
  
  
• Chicago O’Hare International Airport: 567 canceled flights; 796 delayed flights
  
  
• Chicago Midway International Airport: 261 canceled flights; 98 delayed flights
  
  
• Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport: 145canceled flights; 1,045 delayed flights
  
  
• Kansas City International Airport: 91 canceled flights; 122 delayed flights

This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 12:34 PM.