My first-hand experiences with last month’s travel delays were major topics in the last two podcasts. As you would expect, the delays inconvenienced the airlines too. United Airlines announced late Friday afternoon how much of an impact the December storms had on its operations. “During December,” United says, “operations were affected by severe winter snowstorms in (our) two largest hubs, Chicago and Denver. United and United Express cancelled approximately 3,900 flights in Chicago and in Denver.” This was enough, according to the Wall Street Journal, to drive United from a fourth quarter profit to “a modest operating loss.”

United wasn’t alone in happily bidding 2006 adieu. A front-page article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal details the agonies of a December 29th American Airlines flight from San Francisco to Dallas that was diverted to Austin, TX because of thunderstorms over DFW. They sat on the ground at Austin for 8 hours before the captain docked the plane at an empty gate without permission.

“How does this happen?”, asked WSJ columnist Scott McCartney. “After years of cutting staff, carriers are less capable of handling crises — from not having enough telephone reservationists to handle calls, or extra bodies to empty toilet tanks or spare pilots and flight attendants to help out when delays stack up. Congestion in the air and at airports exacerbates the messes caused when storms hit.”