"Nearly 8800 Flights Canceled" -- FlightStats

We knew it would be bad... but according to numbers released Sunday by airline performance watchdog FlightStats.com, on-time statistics during the recent holiday travel season were truly awful.

"By our count, nearly 8800 flights have been canceled at major US airports between Friday, December 19th and Sunday afternoon on December 28 seriously disrupting holiday travel for over 1 million passengers," FlightStats notes. "With capacity cuts and high estimated load factors, travelers subject to cancellations have had an awful time with 2-3 day waits for a seat on another flight commonplace."

FlightStats adds on the six busiest travel days in that 10-day holiday travel period, less than half of the scheduled flights arrived on time. December 21 was the worst of those, with only 39% of flights arriving with 15 minutes of their schedule.

"Flight schedules only approached some semblance of normalcy on Christmas Day and today (Sunday 12/28)," the organization added.

That will come as little surprise to the thousands of travelers who spent their holidays stranded at commercial airports nationwide -- from Honolulu to Newark, from Seattle to Chicago -- with almost all the resultant delays and cancellations caused by wintry weather conditions.

As a case in point, FlightStats notes over the first three days of the holiday travel season, Newark cancelled nearly 46% of its flights, La Guardia 41% and JFK 21%... but as bad as those numbers were, they were soon eclipsed by delays at airports in usually more hospitable locales.

"The worst snow storm in 30 years buried the Pacific Northwest starting on December 20th," FlightStats says. "Portland International's deicing operation broke down causing 37% of its arriving flights to be canceled. On Sunday Portland and Seattle's cancellations hit 76% and 60% respectively. By Monday morning 12/22, the Pacific Northwest's problems had gotten even worse and spread to LAX, SFO, and Las Vegas where cancellations hit 45%, 52% and 78% respectively."

Over the two days preceding Christmas, Chicago O'Hare hit the bottom of the on-time performance list, with less than 10% of its December 23 flights and less than 20% of its Christmas Eve flights arriving on time. Newark had the worst on-time arrival percentage on Wednesday, with an abysmal 13.4% of arriving flights reaching the gate within 15 minutes of scheduled times.

"By Christmas Day, while Portland and Seattle continued to struggle, Salt Lake City's operations began to break down," the group says. "SLC is normally at the top of the on-time performance list. But for the 2 days after Christmas only 34% of its flights were arriving on time."

The day after Christmas was again a rough one for Chicago. Midway Airport reported nearly half of its flights either canceled or diverted; O'Hare was "only slightly better." Atlanta Hartsfield had a 23% on-time arrival day on Friday, with close to half of all flights arriving 45 minutes or more late.

Travelers returning home through some of the major hubs December 2007 experienced highly disrupted flight schedules at DFW, O'Hare, and Atlanta. More than half of all flights at those airports were either very late or canceled, according to FlightStats.

"Things appear to be returning to normal today (Sunday 12/28) offering some hope for many still stuck in a system poorly equipped to deal with the kind of disruptions we've seen this year," the company concluded.

FMI: www.flightstats.com