Some airlines moved quicker than usual to cancel flights in and out of Boston in anticipation of yesterday's snowstorm, saving some passengers and crew members from showing up at Logan International Airport with nowhere to go.
Among the early cancellations were 20 departing flights and 15 arriving flights that JetBlue axed Sunday evening, hours before the first snowflake fell. In total, JetBlue canceled one-third of its planned departures.
"Our system operations team is constantly monitoring weather conditions and in general prefers to make cancellation decisions eight to 12 hours in advance," JetBlue spokesman Sebastian White said. He added, "For these cancels, we did so 12 to 24 hours before, which was possible since the various forecasts and weather models we use for the day ahead all agreed that Boston would be walloped."
US Airways also "precanceled" 40 mainline and 38 express flights. "We were more aggressive with this storm only because the forecast was so severe," airline spokesman Phil Gee said.
Airlines often prefer to wait to cancel until a storm prevents a plane from taking off, since canceling one flight can have a ripple effect across the country.
No such problem occurred yesterday at Logan. At 5 p.m. Sunday, many airlines advised the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport, that they were going to cancel most of the Monday morning flights. The decision was made early so customers could be alerted.
That "worked pretty good, because there were no major lines, no major crowds today," said Massport spokesman Phil Orlandella.
Travelers still were stranded in Boston, where heavy snowfall and strong winds kept one or two of Logan's three runways closed yesterday. George K. Regan Jr., president of Regan Communications, was supposed to fly to West Palm Beach, Fla., yesterday morning to attend meetings. Now he's hoping to head south by tomorrow.
