I'm sure I'm not the only one that finds this odd. Is this because they expect people will have trouble showing up at the airport?

https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-airli ... n-seattle/

It's Seattle, even the threat of snow makes us quiver in fear.

But... I live in the area and I'm surprised by AS canceling flights. My best guess is that they figure enough ill prepared people won't show up for flights that it's a financial move.

I'd assume that it's simply their way of making sure that they are prepared for employees not showing up. Otherwise, why cancel these specific flights early? Instead, they will simply reassign crews as needed to cover the slightly reduced schedule based on who can and can't show up for work.

It will be a minor event but I guess they figure it's preferable to cancel these particular flights ahead instead of having to cancel a potentially more important flight due to the luck of the draw. Not sure which flights these are, but at 1300 re-accommodations over 20 flights, that's only 65 or so people per flight.

StuckInCA wrote:

But... I live in the area and I'm surprised by AS canceling flights. My best guess is that they figure enough ill prepared people won't show up for flights that it's a financial move.

I highly doubt that is true. The DOT does not look kindly on airlines canceling flights with low load factors and blaming weather if it is a financial move.

What I think is more likely is that Alaska acknowledges that they can't run a full schedule with de icing going on. Alaska Airlines fixed their on time performance problem from a few years ago by employing lean principles to carefully choreograph their gate turns. They are committed to getting the first passenger off the plane within 60 seconds of the airplane stopping at the gate. They guarantee 20 mi the baggage delivery. They have done many things to position equipment and do a better job of reducing the amount of ground equipment on the ramp and ensuring it all works.

It would not surprise me if they know exactly how much time running a full de-icing operation takes. SEA doesn't go through 100% de icing very often. There is limited equipment and more so limited space to do it. When it happens, it slows gate turns since it has to be done at the gate. Alaska has very high gate utilization at SEA since it is a space constrained airport. I suspect that there is an engineer in headquarters that has calculated the extra ground time needed. For example each turn may be 8 minutes longer. With limited gates and the aggressive schedules for turnaround time that Alaska has in their network, they might know that if they cancel 20-30 flights and reduce capacity by 10%, the operation can continue to operate on time. That likely is more efficient for the airline than have everything backup and get 1-3 hour delays, gate holds, misconnects, duty time limits etc.

You can't apply the standard of Northeast to West Coast in terms of winter weather preparedness. I used to live in Toronto. In Toronto, many drivers don't even bother with winter tires. We just keep driving with all-season tires, and when it is snowing heavily, people are still driving 40mph on highways. In Vancouver, drivers put on snow tires when there is flurries, and the city will be in chaos with multiple accidents blocking streets. The same would apply to SEA vs. ORD. It simply would not have the infrastructure to handle weather that only happens once several years, including snow plow, de-icing capacity or even preparedness of pilots to fly in those conditions.

Plus the Seattle metro area is VERY hilly. I'm sure a glaze of frozen stuff on
some of those streets would turn them into ski slopes in no time

At first it seemed a bit premature but it's started to snow as of about 730am Seattle time.
http://www.king5.com/weather/sea-tac-airport-cam

If it snows it will be very little. We'll see.

Perhaps it is some of that Hawaii snow.

Looking at the radar, it appears that PDX is getting it worse than SEA. The flight board shows zero cancellations for PDX and only a handful of delays. Seems to me that PDX can 'weather' a storm much better then SEA.

Prost wrote:

It's Seattle, even the threat of snow makes us quiver in fear.

Seriously. The highways will be parking lots within minutes with rolled-over SUVs and jack-knifed articulated busses blocking every other mile.

Overall, looks like we ducked it as we were dry in Bellevue until 7am when it started to rain.

StuckInCA wrote:

But... I live in the area and I'm surprised by AS canceling flights. My best guess is that they figure enough ill prepared people won't show up for flights that it's a financial move.

And what about all the people at the destination airports expecting to get to Seattle on the return flight? I've been on a number of near-empty planes that still go out because the return flight is heavily/fully booked and having to accommodate and compensate them would cost more then the "empty" ferry.

Newbiepilot is on the mark with his comments - SEA does not handle heavy snow well (because it is so rare) and therefore I see this as a pre-emptive move by AS to better accommodate airport disruptions.

[quote="Prost"]It's Seattle, even the threat of snow makes us quiver in fear.[/


Seattle when it snows = Los Angeles when it rains.

Here in PDX it snowed.....Didn't stick at all so no worries here. Seattle it looked like it stuck. Lots of people on AS's facebook page complaining about 3 hour delays waiting for their plane to get deiced and 1+ hours for inbound planes waiting for gates. Not a fun morning at SeaTac.

Prost wrote:

It's Seattle, even the threat of snow makes us quiver in fear.

Ha - so true. What cracks me up is how almost everyone in the state (except me apparently) goes skiing all winter and never has an issue getting to the ski area. But Lord forbid a flake hit the pavement in town....then the whole city shuts down.

I come from an area that gets LOTS of snow (Chicago) but I'll acknowledge that Seattle is hilly where Chicago is flat and that Chicago knows how to treat the roads (salt/deicer etc) whereas Seattle thinks a little sand will do the trick.

Yikes, looks like quite the day so far. Looking at the morning SEA-BOS flight (AS 12), which is scheduled for a 9:30am departure, is now estimated for 1:20pm. Is the snow that bad it's creating delays of 4-hours for flights like this?!?

Also - what's going on with AS 8 (SEA-EWR)? It departed 14-mins late but is arrving 2-hours late?

clrd4t8koff wrote:

Yikes, looks like quite the day so far. Looking at the morning SEA-BOS flight (AS 12), which is scheduled for a 9:30am departure, is now estimated for 1:20pm. Is the snow that bad it's creating delays of 4-hours for flights like this?!?

Also - what's going on with AS 8 (SEA-EWR)? It departed 14-mins late but is arrving 2-hours late?

it probably blocked out and then had to wait for de-ice and taxi.

clrd4t8koff wrote:

Also - what's going on with AS 8 (SEA-EWR)? It departed 14-mins late but is arrving 2-hours late?

Use a wild guess. It left the gate 14 min late and had to wait 1.5 hours for deicing.

Newbiepilot wrote:

What I think is more likely is that Alaska acknowledges that they can't run a full schedule with de icing going on.

I think you are going to be pretty close.
This is not the first time it has ever snowed in SEA, unless of course you listen to CNN, I suspect AS has a pretty good idea how to handle the situation with the least interruption.

Edited to add
Every Airline is suffering from delays and cancellations as the day wears on at SEA. Massive delays and cancellations.
Looks like AS just took the preemptive approach.

Okie

Okie wrote:

Use a wild guess. It left the gate 14 min late and had to wait 1.5 hours for deicing.

Give me a break. Where are you getting this 1.5 hours from? It pushed at 8:14 and didn't take off until 10:47am, 2.5 hours later. What station is so poorly managed that it takes 2.5 hours to get de-iced?!?!?!?!? Is this AS first time dealing with an inch or two of snow @ SEA?

Okie wrote:

Edited to add
Every Airline is suffering from delays and cancellations as the day wears on at SEA. Massive delays and cancellations.
Looks like AS just took the preemptive approach.

Okie

That's quite a bold statement considering DL had a flight that left at 9am for ATL and took off at 10:18am - https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL555. Doesn't seem massive with DL ops.

clrd4t8koff wrote:

Okie wrote:

Edited to add
Every Airline is suffering from delays and cancellations as the day wears on at SEA. Massive delays and cancellations.
Looks like AS just took the preemptive approach.

Okie

That's quite a bold statement considering DL had a flight that left at 9am for ATL and took off at 10:18am - https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL555. Doesn't seem massive with DL ops.

Taking a look at the period between 1200-1500 local DL had 14 flights depart late and one cancellation out of SEA....0900-1200 was worse.

Every airline is being effected by snow and DL is certainly not immune.

http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightSta ... Airport.do

United1 wrote:

clrd4t8koff wrote:

Okie wrote:

Edited to add
Every Airline is suffering from delays and cancellations as the day wears on at SEA. Massive delays and cancellations.
Looks like AS just took the preemptive approach.

Okie

That's quite a bold statement considering DL had a flight that left at 9am for ATL and took off at 10:18am - https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL555. Doesn't seem massive with DL ops.

Taking a look at the period between 1200-1500 local DL had 14 flights depart late and one cancellation out of SEA....0900-1200 was worse.

Every airline is being effected by snow and DL is certainly not immune.

http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightSta ... Airport.do

Not trying to be a smart a** - but how can you know what's happening between 1200-1500 when it's only 13:27 there now. Do you have a crystal ball, lol?

clrd4t8koff wrote:

United1 wrote:

clrd4t8koff wrote:

That's quite a bold statement considering DL had a flight that left at 9am for ATL and took off at 10:18am - https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL555. Doesn't seem massive with DL ops.

Taking a look at the period between 1200-1500 local DL had 14 flights depart late and one cancellation out of SEA....0900-1200 was worse.

Every airline is being effected by snow and DL is certainly not immune.

http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightSta ... Airport.do

Not trying to be a smart a** - but how can you know what's happening between 1200-1500 when it's only 13:27 there now. Do you have a crystal ball, lol?

Simple...the flights have already been delayed by DL due to weather.... probably inbound aircraft are delayed and that has a rolling effect on later flights.

If you want to look at the period between 0000-1200 DL had 11 on time departures and 41 delayed flights....1201-2359 isn't looking like it's going to turn out any better.

clrd4t8koff wrote:

Okie wrote:

Use a wild guess. It left the gate 14 min late and had to wait 1.5 hours for deicing.

Give me a break. Where are you getting this 1.5 hours from? It pushed at 8:14 and didn't take off until 10:47am, 2.5 hours later. What station is so poorly managed that it takes 2.5 hours to get de-iced?!?!?!?!? Is this AS first time dealing with an inch or two of snow @ SEA?

Before you start exclaiming about a station being so poorly managed, take a look at an aerial view of SEA. There are only three parking areas away from the terminal and all of them are used to park overnight airplanes due to lack of gates. Next look at how tight the space around the north and south satellite are. Now try to find somewhere to put a deicing pad. You won't find any space. Airports that can handle a full operation in snow tend to have a lot more space. A Toronto or Denver style drive thru deicing pad is not going to work. Neither is it going to be easy to back off the gate and do it without slowing down movements. Another factor is equipment. SEA is tight and is only doing 100% deicing about a dozen times per year. Between 7 and 8am there are usually a dozen airplanes being towed to gates from remote parking.

It is not worth the investment in equipment or space to make the airport capable of handling 100% daily capacity in snow. SEA had the runway capacity to deal with IFR conditions and fog, which are very common. It can't keep 100% of flights on time with snow just like how Chicago, Boston, Newark, Laguardia and JFK can't keep a full on time schedule. It is a waste of space and money to keep the airport at max capacity during snow and ice removal.

What I do agree with is that 2 hour de icing delays are excessive. That is more than reasonably expected delays. If delays are that long during the morning rush, I wonder what it would have been like if they had not cancelled a few flights.

Newbiepilot wrote:

clrd4t8koff wrote:

Okie wrote:

It is not worth the investment in equipment or space to make the airport capable of handling 100% daily capacity in snow.

It clearly is, if two measly inches of snow can bring the entire airport to its knees for days on end. How in the world do AS and DL expect to run profitable hub/focus city operations if everything grinds to a standstill the second it snows?

Strandedatmkg, I think the answer is simple. The hub is more profitable since they run more flights than the airport can handle in snowy conditions the 98% of days a year when there is no snow.

Have you looked at the on time performance in other hubs like UA at SFO, AA at PHL and anyone at EWR, LGA or JFK?

This has to do with the de-ice operation. There is no de-ice pad at SEA and planes are de-iced at the gate. AS is just being proactive.

As a former ground agent and de-icer at SEA, I know we practiced for one day on how to use the trucks, a month later we had a night of light snow, but our policy was spray every plane in those conditions. It was a rough night as we struggled to maneuver the truck around the planes and even know the proper procedure for a sustained operation vs. an hour of training. Some of the planes were leaving 2 hours late because of us. Sadly most companies dont invest in de-ice training at SEA.

StrandedAtMKG wrote:

Newbiepilot wrote:

clrd4t8koff wrote:

It clearly is, if two measly inches of snow can bring the entire airport to its knees for days on end. How in the world do AS and DL expect to run profitable hub/focus city operations if everything grinds to a standstill the second it snows?

It rarely snows at SEA. I'm not sure it even snowed there this morning, but temps were close to freezing with rain so I imagine all planes were de-iced as a precaution, as SEAtown notes above and that is what caused the mess as morning is when SEA has one of their heaviest departure banks.

StrandedAtMKG wrote:

Newbiepilot wrote:

clrd4t8koff wrote:

It clearly is, if two measly inches of snow can bring the entire airport to its knees for days on end. How in the world do AS and DL expect to run profitable hub/focus city operations if everything grinds to a standstill the second it snows?

Pure hyperbole nonsense. The airport has not been brought to its knees for even one day.

According to FlightRadar 24: https://www.flightradar24.com/airport/sea/arrivals There were about 60 cancellation out of 400 operations (inbound and outbound combined) between midnight and 15:00. Sure, there have been many significant delays, but the planes are arriving and departing.

According to FlightAware: http://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/today Seattle is about in a dead heat with Chicago ORD in many respect today.

ER757 wrote:

Prost wrote:

It's Seattle, even the threat of snow makes us quiver in fear.

Ha - so true. What cracks me up is how almost everyone in the state (except me apparently) goes skiing all winter and never has an issue getting to the ski area. But Lord forbid a flake hit the pavement in town....then the whole city shuts down.

I come from an area that gets LOTS of snow (Chicago) but I'll acknowledge that Seattle is hilly where Chicago is flat and that Chicago knows how to treat the roads (salt/deicer etc) whereas Seattle thinks a little sand will do the trick.

Three things about this, although this is largely off-topic from the limited de-icing capacity at SEA:

1.) It's not everybody in the state. It's maybe 10%, and I'm not even sure it's that high. Those who ski are less likely to be the people having trouble in the snow. It takes one bad driver to shut down a road with thousands of people on it, but 50% of the drivers on the road are worse than average in general, and 90% of them have less experience in the snow than the average Chicago driver. That includes a lot of people who moved from further south with no experience in the snow, and who don't comprehend that AWD helps you get in trouble faster, but doesn't help you stop faster. Basically, 90% of the drivers here give the rest of us a bad reputation.

2.) Because we don't get frequent snow in the winter, we don't invest heavily in snow removal. Having a standing army of plows, staff to drive them regularly, and huge stockpile of de-icer is more expensive in our area than than the occasional loss of productivity, so roads don't get cleared nearly as quickly.

3.) In areas with regular snow, most of it tends to fall in conditions colder than freezing. The Pacific NW marine climate lowlands have different weather patterns, and our coldest weather is usually very dry. When we do get lowland snow, it's usually in conditions right around freezing.

The result is the snow is usually just barely frozen. When compacted, you get slush if the temperature is above freezing, resulting in potential for extreme hydroplaning, as well as freezing to ice overnight. At or just below freezing, when compacted you get a thin melted film between your tire and the the compact snow that results in an almost soapy consistency. It's remarkably bad for traction.

I described this to a coworker from upstate NY when he moved here. He was used to dealing with several feet of snow at a time,so he just politely nodded at me and kept his mouth shut about the dumb Washingtonian who assumed he didn't know how to drive in snow. After we got our first decent snow of the year, he actually sought me out to comment about how he had several close calls on the drive in that morning because he hadn't realized how much worse the traction was than what he was used to.

There is a little snow on the ground in Wenatchee, Washington. Alaska cancelled the night time flight. Yet it snows in Pasco, Yakima & Spokane and they still have flights. This Winter is suppose to have many snow days which means even more cancelled flights into Wenatchee, Washington.

http://www.pangbornairport.com/flightsa ... ebcam.html

dc10lover wrote:

There is a little snow on the ground in Wenatchee, Washington. Alaska cancelled the night time flight. Yet it snows in Pasco, Yakima & Spokane and they still have flights. This Winter is suppose to have many snow days which means even more cancelled flights into Wenatchee, Washington.

http://www.pangbornairport.com/flightsa ... ebcam.html

Clearly we don't have all the inside information on why flights are canceled or not.

This Winter is going to be a mess with all of the cancelled flights at Wenatchee.

Newbiepilot wrote:

What I think is more likely is that Alaska acknowledges that they can't run a full schedule with de icing going on.

Bingo. You see the same scenario in DFW a few times a year.

So... This is something I have to explain a lot because so many people have moved here from elsewhere and many people mock Seattle for how we respond to snow. In Seattle often, when it snows, it does not just start snowing on dry ground. In fact, the ground in Seattle is rarely completely dry between October and June. Typically, when a snow storm system comes in, it starts as rain during the day and then converts to snow, often at night. That rain then freezes on the ground and there is a very thick sheet of ice underneath that layer of snow. Typically the snow accumulations are not that great because they are at the tail end of a storm system followed by a cold area of high pressure, so the snow does not really pack down on top of the ice. So, often, the problem is not the snow itself, rather, it is the layer of solid ice underneath that has coated every single road by the time the morning commute rolls around. Seattle also has very significant hills, which compounds the problem. It is a very messy and dangerous situation. Many Seattle people have experience driving in the snow, particularly those of us who enjoy skiing or snowboard or other winter sports, I can attest that the conditions on the roads when it has snowed in the lowlands vs. mountain snow are very different and much more challenging, mainly due to the ice.

I don't know if this factored in to AS' decision, someone else can answer that better than I can, but this ought to help explain why we respond to snow in the way that we do.

hiflyeras wrote:

At first it seemed a bit premature but it's started to snow as of about 730am Seattle time.
http://www.king5.com/weather/sea-tac-airport-cam

absolutely premature. AS needs to get there act together, a bit of snow cant leave you running scared to cancel flights. We aren't talking a blizzard here. Shame on AS.

b6sea wrote:

So... This is something I have to explain a lot because so many people have moved here from elsewhere and many people mock Seattle for how we respond to snow. In Seattle often, when it snows, it does not just start snowing on dry ground. In fact, the ground in Seattle is rarely completely dry between October and June. Typically, when a snow storm system comes in, it starts as rain during the day and then converts to snow, often at night. That rain then freezes on the ground and there is a very thick sheet of ice underneath that layer of snow. Typically the snow accumulations are not that great because they are at the tail end of a storm system followed by a cold area of high pressure, so the snow does not really pack down on top of the ice. So, often, the problem is not the snow itself, rather, it is the layer of solid ice underneath that has coated every single road by the time the morning commute rolls around. Seattle also has very significant hills, which compounds the problem. It is a very messy and dangerous situation. Many Seattle people have experience driving in the snow, particularly those of us who enjoy skiing or snowboard or other winter sports, I can attest that the conditions on the roads when it has snowed in the lowlands vs. mountain snow are very different and much more challenging, mainly due to the ice.

I don't know if this factored in to AS' decision, someone else can answer that better than I can, but this ought to help explain why we respond to snow in the way that we do.

No excuse. Just poor preparation on the part of AS. Plain and simple. What you described also happens on the east coast. AS needs a better plan on preparing for minimal weather events like this. What year are we in now, 2016 and they cant handle a few inches of snow?

jumbojet wrote:

No excuse. Just poor preparation on the part of AS. Plain and simple. What you described also happens on the east coast. AS needs a better plan on preparing for minimal weather events like this. What year are we in now, 2016 and they cant handle a few inches of snow?

Not a few inches, trace amounts. Big difference. You aren't driving on snow, you're driving on ice, and inch or two of snow would make it much easier to drive on. Although, if they don't have enough equipment to de-ice the aircraft that's another story, but getting people to and from the airport in these conditions is not at all like it is on the East Coast. I have enough relatives who come out here talking big about how we respond to snow and then drive in it for 5 minutes and understand completely. It's not the same, sorry. I did my best to explain it, as I'm not a meteorologist, but perhaps not well enough. All-wheel-drive and "driving ability" isn't going to help you driving on an ice rink.

jumbojet wrote:

hiflyeras wrote:

At first it seemed a bit premature but it's started to snow as of about 730am Seattle time.
http://www.king5.com/weather/sea-tac-airport-cam

absolutely premature. AS needs to get there act together, a bit of snow cant leave you running scared to cancel flights. We aren't talking a blizzard here. Shame on AS.

Is there no shame with you?

Just curious, may part of the issue be the Port of Seattle's ability/resources to clean up the deicing fluid after a deicing event? I know here in PHX (and lets face it, we deice three times a year), we can't use the gate until the fluid has been cleaned up by a sweeper/scrubber and when multiple aircraft are all departing and being deiced at the same time, the cleanup can take a while.

I was at SEA for much of the afternoon yesterday, once the snow tapered off around noon, things were fine. I assume the majority of the CXLs were morning/kickoff flights, as they probably were concerned about A) airfield capacity and B) deice capacity early on. That's how these things work when it comes to prioritizing and preplanning.

While they probably would've come out alright, they likely had concerns about long taxiway/deice delays and sought to alleviate those potential issues.

A back of the envelope 'systems analysis' might compare lost time and expense of rare snow storm and the cost of equipment and training against spending the same amount of money on recovery plans from any major slowdown. At SeaTac the later may be the better way to spend money.

alasizon wrote:

Just curious, may part of the issue be the Port of Seattle's ability/resources to clean up the deicing fluid after a deicing event? I know here in PHX (and lets face it, we deice three times a year), we can't use the gate until the fluid has been cleaned up by a sweeper/scrubber and when multiple aircraft are all departing and being deiced at the same time, the cleanup can take a while.

That was my thought too as the aprons in PHX drain directly into the city stormwater system. However, SEA appears to have an industrial wastewater recovery system around the terminal areas.

You guys realize AS flys Jets into places like Barrow, Nome, Kotzebue, Deadhorse, Adak, and SE Alaska every single day. I think they know how to operate in the freaking snow.

In Seattle each airline is responsible for de-icing themselves, it has been reported some of Alaska's equipment was not functioning. I happened to arrive in SEA that same morning on ANA and waited for an hour for a Delta plane to deice and clear our gate.

AS spin on busted trucks... http://www.seattlepi.com/local/komo/art ... 779314.php

The real snow starts Thursday December 8 - Friday December 9.

Everyone blaming de-icers and broken de-icers need to ask the mechanics. From an AS VP Monday & Tuesday are because of a labor dispute between AS & mechanics.

b6sea wrote:

You aren't driving on snow, you're driving on ice, and inch or two of snow would make it much easier to drive on. Although, if they don't have enough equipment to de-ice the aircraft that's another story, but getting people to and from the airport in these conditions is not at all like it is on the East Coast..

I just curious, how does the airport deal with taxiways and runways under such glazed surface conditions. Do they used liquid deicers of some kind? I don't imagine a plow or snowblower works well on glass-like surfaces.

n7371f wrote:

Everyone blaming de-icers and broken de-icers need to ask the mechanics. From an AS VP Monday & Tuesday are because of a labor dispute between AS & mechanics.

What's your source?