American Airlines dumped a quarter of its flights systemwide on Thursday, while 71% of all airline operations were cancelled at American’s largest hub, Dallas – Fort Worth, according to data from FlightAware. Meanwhile, with miserable weather in the area, cross-town Dallas Love Field saw 47% of flights cancelled.
DFW is sometimes derided as standing for ‘Doesn’t Function Wet’ considering the operational challenges it seems to face whenever it rains. But the airport clearly doesn’t function icy, either. And American and airport leaders indirectly traded barbs at each other over its issues on Thursday.
Aviation watchdog JonNYC highlighted that the airline’s ops was telling pilots that DFW had run out of fluid to de-ice runways, and as a result planes would not be able to land there.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) January 9, 2025
DFW airport, for its part, denied being out of fluid to treat the runways.
We are aware of posts claiming that DFW is out of runway deicing materials. We have ample supplies and crews have been working hard to keep the airfield moving safely as weather allows. Don't forget to add extra drive time on the roads tonight and tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/5zpfwSBccx
— DFW Airport (@DFWAirport) January 9, 2025
American, though, was telling its crews that this was the issue and they, in turn, were telling that to customers.
American Airlines specifically announced as the reason they were deplaning us that the airport had run out of deicing fluid for both the runway and the planes
— now sadieh on bIue$ky (@SadieTweetsHere) January 9, 2025
That’s what our flight crew told us.
— Sam Nicholls (@SamNicholls) January 9, 2025
Then why did our flight turn around in the air and fly all the way back? The airline said you ran out of material to treat the runway. This is incompetence.
— Daniella See (@Daniel_See_1139) January 9, 2025
And, of course, it wasn’t just American’s flights diverting and holding at their origin – though the formal ground stop was issued only for American. Yet the airline and airport couldn’t quite get their stories straight.
Update: While American Airlines employees from dispatch to gates were pointing fingers at the airport, the carrier’s management is not doing so. According to a spokesperson,
It’s been all-hands-on-deck for the American team — many of whom braved the weather to staff our airports, flights and operations center to take care of our customers and keep our airline moving. Still, the effects of Winter Storm Cora cannot be understated.
The storm continues to bring freezing rain, sleet, snow and freezing temperatures that amount to incredibly difficult operating conditions — conditions that, for many parts of Thursday, prevented flights from being able to safely depart.
Though Friday morning’s conditions will limit our operation, our entire team is focused on and gearing up to recover our airline quickly once the operating conditions improve. Leading up to and throughout this storm, safely caring for our customers has been our singular focus, and we apologize for the inconvenience this winter weather has caused.
They do not suggest either side lacks de-icing fluid, and aren’t blaming that as a reason for airport runway closures.
Well, in your opinion, which entity is known for lying to their customers?
Either way. It’s the airports responsibility to maintain runway and taxi way areas. I mean delta flights diverted from dtw to mem back to dtw. And that’s aa fault? What a dumb article. Instead if bashing the airport yoir bashing aa. Shame on you .
Reminds me of the Atlanta ‘Snowpocalypse’ in 2014. Like, it was just a little snow and ice, but because that region is less used to it, that storm practically paralyzed the metro area. Oh, wait, this storm affecting DFW is literally headed to ATL, now. Ok, gonna be a bad week for AA and DL. Yikes.
Relatedly, will our incoming ‘god-king’ blame the governor of Texas for this mix of natural causes and incompetence, like he blames the fires in California on its governor. Nope. It’ll be crickets.
I know, I know… it’s 2025, and irony, hypocrisy, decency, and accountability are all dead, but still, you gotta admit, maybe, just maybe, actually helping each other get through hard times might be better for the society. Nah. Everyone for themselves! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Ah, the shit-kicking sure is fun, isn’t it?
DFW Airport was even posting photos of its supposed stockpile of runway deicing material getting loaded into trucks.
Say Gary, it really would be nice if you would provide the rest of us with a way to mute @1990.
I work at DFW and can tell you that it takes an Act of God to get a facility maintenance issue fixed as the Airport has outsourced much of the work!! And no one seems to know which contractor is responsible for what!! Our gate house air conditioner went out last summer and it took the contractors over a week and a half to replace it!! Heard ALL of the excuses from DFW NOT wanting to spend the money to replace it, to it needs a new compressor and there aren’t any in stock, to it’s an electrical issue and we had to order one from China!!
Give me a freaking break!! Also tried for almost a year to get my gate markings repainted as they were beyond recognizable! Was told that it had been requestioned!! Finally was told that DFW had turned that department back over to AA but there was no money in the piggy bank at the time to do it!! Finally last September it was finally accomplished!!
@TexasTJ
The truth hurts, doesn’t it. Much easier to silence those you disagree with.
What do they say: ‘Can’t handle the heat? Get outta the kitchen!’
Where’d all the ‘free speech absolutists’ go?? Blah, blah, ‘cancel culture’ blah.
Gary has not censored anyone that I know of—not even the recent commenter who used the n-word, with the hard-r, in a separate post.
So, in your (or anyones) opinion, what warrants my desired banishment?
I’d think Gary actually appreciates any and all engagement, because as big tech taught us: the more outrage, the better. Hope he gets more clicks, referrals, and ad revenue. I support his blog. Good for Gary.
Also, you may have noticed, I take the time and care to actually comment on the topic at hand, not just randomly attack other individuals here. Perhaps.. it is you, good sir, from Texas, yee-haw, the state whose airport is affected by this storm, the one with the cowboys, should be the one muted. Or not, because I enjoy your hate. Feed me, like DFW should have fed its supply of de-icing fluids in-advance of this storm. See what I did there? Full-circle. Nice.
Here’s the issue. Dallas doesn’t get a lot of wintery weather and holding large stocks of de-icing fluid is expensive and neither the airport or the airlines want to bear the cost so when an event like this occurs they are caught flat footed.
Wait a minute. Gruesome isn’t a god-king in his own mind. He & Pelosi destroyed California without any help from the wrath of nature.
@1990 – right on brother!! Preach.
@TexasTJ – I’m a life long Texan (unfortunately) and people like you give Texans a bad name bro. Let me guess – live in E. Texas maybe Kilgore, Tyler, Hickville????
@Joanie Adams
California, other than these recent wildfires, is doing just fine–quite well, actually. In fact, LAX, even with the fires, is operating without issue, unlike DFW with its winter storm.
@UnTexasJS
I’ve enjoyed the times I’ve visited Texas and its neighbors. Hope to return sometime soon for hiking at Big Bend NP. As far as aviation is concerned, they get some decent stuff, too. First a220 I flew on was out of Austin with Delta a few years back–loved it. And the UnitedClubs at IAH have those delicious tortillas with eggs and bacon for breakfast. Yum. Wish they’d do that elsewhere.
DFW is a shitty airport and AA is a shitty airline.
@1990:
“I know, I know… it’s 2025, and irony, hypocrisy, decency, and accountability are all dead…”
The water shortage is a direct result of Newsom’s policies in preventing much needed runoff water that could be used extiguish these fires as well as a failure to clean up and maintain underbrush which feeds the fires. Trump didn’t do this – he simply pointed these failures out and put them center stage in the spotlight. Good for Trump! Accountability? Good question, where is accountability in this matter?
DFW is staffed with DEI Jasmine Crockett types.
Wrong again as always, @1990. You equate “muting” with “cancel culture” and “banishment”, but as we all know, they’re completely unrelated. Muting simply enables any one individual who is tired of the hate speech from an individual to “mute” them, or delete them from their individual feed. “Cancel culture” and “banishment”, on the other hand, refer to wholesale efforts on behalf of one side to completely eliminate their views from the marketplace of ideas so that nobody can see them. As we all know, only the Far Left has actually been proven to do the latter.
Hey @UnTexasJS: If you prefer the politics of Kalifornia, please do Texans a favor and leave Texas at once.
One factor at DFW is the availability of de-ice trucks. DFW just doesn’t have them in the numbers that are at NE airports. If you need to be de-iced, you have to wait till they can get to you.
@1990
I’m staying on topic – and then spends all his comments talking about someone called God king and the fires in LA.
That’s on topic if you live in a world of delusion
Agree with the post above about DFW’s “de-icing” equipment. Airports further north “de-ice” planes at the gate so they can head for a runway & depart. At DFW “de-icing” aircraft is done on a common pad where airplanes must wait for clearance to depart – which takes time – and often results in a need to “de-ice” aircraft more than one time.
I’ve lived in Dallas over 50 years. I live just E of Love Field. Dallas media almost-always ‘over-sells’ incoming winter weather. Media started the hype 5-6 days earlier, ‘break out your leather shoes, you’ll be chewing on them as you starve.” Forecast was up to 8 inches of snow, NWS stats from Thursday shows ‘snow’ falling at the rate of .1 an hour for 15 minutes a couple times, temp as low as 32 for 15 minutes, otherwise a couple degrees higher. What hit the ground melted immediately. I saw the cancellations, from NWS stats there was no ice to melt.
AA continuing the airline culture of lying to their customers.
here’s the latest excuse: the solution American, and other airlines, uses to deice its planes is greatly reduced in effectiveness during freezing rain and sleet conditions, as were present Thursday. This left flights unable to depart from DFW.
Sorry, took me a while to get back to y’all. Not sure there’s much else to say. Just glad to see you guys care. I would typically say ‘feed me’ at this point, but I may actually be nearly full today. I have enjoyed the feast though. Yum yum.
A significant reason for Thursdays’ fiasco was that DFW was on south flow for most of the post-dawn AM, and early afternoon operation. South flow isn’t in-and-of-itself unusual. But what was unusual was the fact that air temps were at, or slightly above freezing during that timeframe. In other words, typically when it’s cold in the DFW region, air traffic flows north.
Because of the unusual configuration, aircraft were having to taxi south for deicing (that’s where the DFW deicing facilities are), then taxi back north for departure. Due to traffic, many of flights were not able to get airborne before the ‘holdover time’ – or, the amount of time from application of deicing fluid that the deicing fluid will no longer be effective, thus prompting another application.
In sum – deicing facilities being at the south end of the field with the airport being in south flow was an adverse configuration for the amount of departure traffic that likely was in progress during the course of the period in question.
Is Texas bracing for another snow storm in February like the one a few years ago (that led to over 200 deaths) or the one ten years before that? Some parts of Texas commonly get snow in the winter but it seems a lot of Texas becomes dysfunctional when it starts snowing. Probably a lot of people there are praying for global warming.
New day. Hungry again.
@Aaron
Wait, I though it was spelled ‘Newscum’ — Get your talking points straight. I don’t care who’s in charge at this point, and it’s about to be ‘your team,’ so they better fix it, or get out of the way. What is it now, ‘price of eggs,’ peace in Ukraine ‘on day one,’ and ‘mass deportations’ Phew! Good luck.
@TexasTJ
Hey buddy. Got nothing against the good people of Texas. Just saying that leadership and operations teams at DFW could have done a better job preparing for the forecasted ice storm. It’s fine, they’ll live. Clearly, they did better than ATL in the last day. Jeepers.
Also, you’re welcome to tell anyone you wish to ‘go back where they came from’ –Many of us have lived in states like Florida, Texas, etc., but also California, New York, etc. We ‘evil leftists’ are among you. And we enjoy all the Amendments, too. Some of us even enjoy the banter and name-calling.
@David427
Were you the one offended by those of us calling out the Cubans at MIA? If not, no worries. Either way, nice try. The topic at hand is natural phenomena affecting airports. DTW… snow. Relatedly, LAX… fires (I know, not explicitly in Gary’s post, but, let’s be real, concurrent and relevant). Then, it’s a discussion about how the respective leadership responds. One tries to help; one blames others. Clearly, you prefer the guy who blames others and does nothing. Noted.
Where are the other typical foes? @Mantis @Gene @RetiredGambler — Are you all the same person with different usernames, or just watch the same right-wing propaganda?
@Fordamist that may have been the case where you were, the NWS snow map showed only fractions of an inch in south and east Dallas but DFW wound up with 2.6 inches and areas north and west recieved 5, including Alliance (AFW). In addition DFW experienced many hours of mixed freezing rain, ice pellets (sleet) and snow and the temperature was below 32F for a prolonged period until early afternoon when it finally went over to rain (before going back over to snow at 9pm). I was staying next to DFW on the south side near Euless and drove up the west side DFW to Grapevine on Thursday and there was an appreciable ramp up in snow amounts just across the length of the airport. The dividing line between what you got (not much) Vs what they got was very fine so no it was not really over played, the 8ins forecast were isolated amounts and applied to the whole warning area which covered up to the red river, where they did in fact get 6-8ins.
Big difference between running out of fluid and not being able to keep on top of deicing and runway treatment. I expect the latter is what occurred otherwise they would’ve had to shut down the whole airport until it turned to rain and again when it went back to snow at 9pm and that didn’t happen. Likely there was a lot of communication between ops, pilots, dispatch and the reasoning got misunderstood or twisted into something it wasn’t. A lot of the diverts happened during a mix of freezing rain, snow and ice pellets (sleet) which significantly reduces holdover time of the aircraft after deicing and makes treating the runways more challenging
@1990
Who’s your Daddy for the next 4 years?
@aaway Thank you for the plausible explanation. Any idea why they didn’t switch directions when things became problematic?
Is this a consistent culprit in any of the other recent DFW meltdowns?
American Airlinesneeds to stop using DFW as a hub. The airport simply cannot handle it, even on a good weather day. Dallas is prone to bad weather and is only getting worse.
@ TexasTJ. I think that TDS started out as humoring those who lived by the words of MSM. Then along come the words from commenters that actually prove that it is a derangement syndrome with Trump is the focal point. Sad that this occupies and flourishes in so many minds. Some Truth Checkers are well aware of the Illusionary Truth Effect and use it often since our brains tend to associate familiarity with truth. Then there are those who are situational bat sh*t crazy and cling to their TDS. I applaud your attempt to be rationale with a commenter who is irrational but I get more satisfaction supporting points that are logical rather than emotional. Those who use name calling are not using logic. Just my opinion.
I really didn’t want to join this, but…
@TexasTJ – you can no longer claim “cancel culture” is only a “far left” activity. You’re either misinformed OR ignoring the truth. After the Bud Light Boycott and what Robby Starbuck is doing to major corporations in the US, that comment is completely inaccurate. The far right has proven that bigotry and hatred is more than capable of (and maybe more effective at) cancel culture.
@Skygirl – “Any idea why they didn’t switch directions when things became problematic?
Is this a consistent culprit in any of the other recent DFW meltdowns?”
Couldn’t change direction due to wind component (speed & direction) and wet or contaminated (i.e., snow, slush, ice) runways. In other words – airplanes, tailwinds, slick runways don’t mix well together.
The icy component of this event was not present in more recent DFW snafus.
@Babs
By ‘Babs’ are you referring to Ashli Babbitt? RIP in piece.
And four years? Doubtful. Cholesterol. All those diet Cokes and McDonalds. On the other hand, if he makes it that long, he won’t leave. Then again, he isn’t really in-charge, is he? It’s President Musk and the oligarchs. And they don’t give a rats bunghole about you or your bigotry. We all lose, son.