Summer travel disruptions are once again testing airline passengers’ patience as they hunker down in airport lounges, waiting for storms to pass, planes to arrive and timed-out crews to be replaced.
One survey of limited scientific value is my own experience of weather-related flight disruptions over the past few months, where on three trips to New York since June, I experienced significant delays 100% of the time.
In the first instance, I was stuck in Chicago, waiting to take off for seven hours after what looked like a couple of hours of fairly unimpressive early morning rainfall.
On the second occasion, more severe weather caused my flight to be canceled and trapped me overnight in New York. In similar circumstances, on the third trip, my family and I had to stay an extra night and then take a bus to Philadelphia to catch a flight from the City of Brotherly Love to avoid staying over another night on the East Coast.
Still, that was an improvement on my experience last summer when a supposed overnight trip to New York turned into a four-night stay as I waited for a flight — any flight — to take me home after another summer storm.
A particular breed of New Yorker would no doubt think I should stop whining and count myself lucky to be holed up in the Center of the Universe for a few more days, no matter the reason. Many others who have undergone similar experiences in cities throughout the United States over the past couple of years would, I hope, be more sympathetic.
Of course, all the above is nothing more than a privileged person moaning about relatively minor inconveniences. The people who suffered the brunt of the storms that I felt the tail end of have much more reason to feel distressed. Yet the numerous tales of upset travel plans that we’ve all heard and told do seem to be yet more signals about changing weather patterns and the need to personally and collectively build more resilience into our lives.
If you need data on the issue beyond my admittedly narrow personal experience, look at the insurance industry’s catastrophe-related losses over the past several years, where claims exceeding $100 billion annually have become the norm. While demographic shifts account for some of the increase, it’s hard not to surmise that increased severe weather incidents also contribute to the loss totals.
Like most complex problems, there is no easy solution, but making organizations more resilient to severe weather conditions is something that the hordes of travelers sitting in overcrowded airports sipping over-priced coffee and munching food of questionable nutritional value as they search for a semi-affordable hotel to spend the night should support without reservations.
