Ho Ho Oh No: Bad Weather May Impact Holiday Travel

Pack your patience.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this holiday season may be a little less wonderland and a lot more winter.

At a press conference this week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned that bad weather could be on the way to make this Christmas a little less merry by disrupting holiday air travel. “We may see some bad weather around the holidays,” Buttigieg said, according to CNN, adding: “Winter weather may be a challenge, and it will certainly be a challenge in the next few weeks.” According to Fox News forecasters, "Dallas, Oklahoma City, Little Rock and St. Louis" may all be impacted by a storm system and warned folks to plan ahead if they are "traveling late this week and then into early this weekend."

While airlines can’t control the weather, according to Buttigieg they can help cut down on some of the flight cancellations and delays that cause so much travel turmoil. Proving that point, earlier this week, the Department of Transportation fined Southwest Airlines a whopping $140 million for last year’s holiday travel turmoil, which lasted ten days and led to “the cancellation of 16,900 flights, stranding two million passengers,” per CNN.

Despite last year’s holiday travel troubles, the Transportation Secretary pointed out that there were fewer flight cancellations in 2023 than in the last five years. He also noted that the airlines did well as everyone traveled over the river and over the woods during the Thanksgiving holiday and he hopes to replicate that for the Christmas travel rush. To help ease any possible headaches, the FAA is opening up more travel routes to help keep all those planes moving, no reindeer necessary.

Pack your patience.

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