Delayed Or Canceled Flight? What The Passenger Does Not Know

Your luggage was checked, you boarding pass is at hand, you pass through the security filters, waiting for the call to board, and suddenly, you look at the information panel in the waiting room and see the message nobody likes to get: "delayed or canceled flight".

Although the passenger does not know the causes of flight delays and cancellations and everything is in apparent normality at the airport, the operation of a flight implies the existence of several factors that must be perfectly aligned.

The following are the most common causes of flight delay or cancellation.

1. - Weather conditions

   Heavy rains and snowfall during the winter months are well known; these can delay ground operations and hinder landing or take off maneuvers. The sunny summer arrives and the season of greatest passenger traffic begins: family vacations, meetings with friends, sunny days to enjoy, and a climate that would seem pleasant to fly. However, the combination of high temperatures and summer winds can surprisingly result in a storm that may result imperceptible at ground level.

   During the summer months, the hot air rises and interacts with the cold air that is in the upper atmosphere. This mixture causes water vapor to condense and storm clouds with lightning to form at great heights; the lighting cannot be seen from the surface.

   In general, airlines coordinate with Air Traffic Control if a change in landing or take-off routes is needed to avoid these thunderstorm clouds. But the operation could continue to represent a risk for ground workers who are on the platform carrying out activities prior to the departure or arrival of flights, such as aircraft fueling, luggage transfer, inspection and cleaning of aircrafts, etc.

   Then, due to weather changes, delays or cancellations of scheduled itineraries occur. In these cases, the airline is exempt from the obligation to compensate passengers for the damages that they could have suffered as established in the regulations of "Provisions for Compensation to Users for Flight Delays", because the facts are not attributable to the company.

2. - Operational modifications

   For the optimization of operations and greater efficiency in fuel consumption, an aircraft may be scheduled to fly to several destinations. In this case, a delay in another station could cause what is called “drag delay”; that is, a problem in another airport could result in a delay in the operation of the next flight in some other point.

   Likewise, there are...