Fog Once Again Cripples ATL, LAX

It's shaping up to be yet another rocky holiday travel season, as winter weather spreads across the United States just in time for Thanksgiving.

Already this week, fog has caused problems at airports throughout the nation -- from Los Angeles to Atlanta, from Chicago to Philadelphia. But that was just the start, reports Weather Channel senior meteorologist Tom Moore.

"Wednesday is going to be a nightmare over a lot of the country," Moore told USA Today. A front now forming in the Pacific Northwest is expected to spread across from the Rocky Mountains, down to the Gulf of Mexico and east to Vermont... bringing the threat of wintry conditions to the north, with the potential for severe thunderstorms further south.

"Although it's not going to be a colossal storm, there's going to be so much rain and low clouds, I would say there are going to be significant delays over large parts of the country," Moore added.

If there's any good news to be had, it's that the storm is not expected to reach major airports along the East Coast until late Wednesday or early Thursday... by which point most passengers traveling to visit relatives will have already reached their destinations.

Still, the weather comes at an inopportune time for the airline industry, already struggling to cope with what are expected to be record numbers of passengers for a 12-day period around the Thanksgiving holiday.

"Weather and volume are the biggest drivers of delay," said Air Transport Association spokesman David Castelveter. "If this weather pattern continues, we will have both."

The weather isn't the only factor to blame for delays, either. As ANN reported, a radio communications problem between control towers at Dallas/Fort Worth International impacted roughly 75 percent of American Airlines flights Monday, though reported cancellations were few.

A software bug in the system that transmits radio communications throughout facilities in the sector was to blame, according to FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto.

Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the consumer advocacy group Business Travel Coalition, offers perhaps the best advice for passengers coping with airline delays this holiday season.

"Lower your expectations and build as much time in as you possibly can," he said.

FMI: www.fly.faa.gov, www.airlines.org, http://btcweb.biz/