{"id":73957,"date":"2019-08-14T11:33:09","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T11:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/flight-cancellations-at-durango-airport-more-than-double\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T16:02:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:02:50","slug":"flight-cancellations-at-durango-airport-more-than-double","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/flight-cancellations-at-durango-airport-more-than-double\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight cancellations at Durango airport more than double"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=8a048dc5-3f56-457a-8e1e-77e89daa9599&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1542\" height=\"1020\" alt=\"Snow and thunderstorms are being blamed for an increase in flight cancellations this year at the Durango-La Plata County Airport.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Snow and thunderstorms are being blamed for an increase in flight cancellations this year at the Durango-La Plata County Airport.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The number of flight cancellations at Durango-La Plata County Airport more than doubled this year because of harsh snowstorms and summer thunderstorms.<\/p>\n<p>United Airlines and American Airlines have canceled 115 flights serving Durango from January through July this year. The number of cancellations is up 130% from the same period last year when 50 flights were canceled, according to the airport\u2019s activity report.<\/p>\n<p>United is largely responsible for the increase in cancellations, the report shows.<\/p>\n<p>The airline canceled 65 flights in the first seven months of the year, up from 15 flights during the same period last year.<\/p>\n<p>Heavy snow and thunderstorms in Denver were responsible for many of United\u2019s cancellations, said Tony Vicari, director of aviation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not in the airlines\u2019 best interest to cancel. \u2026 They typically do so for safety reasons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Vicari said he understands flight cancellations can cause frustration among passengers, but they are a small percentage of the 2,456 scheduled flights provided at the airport so far this year.<\/p>\n<p>United did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The Durango airport cannot control cancellations, but it does hurt the airport financially when flights are canceled because the passengers are not spending money on parking or concessions, Vicari said.<\/p>\n<p>However, the airport is doing well financially because of the strong travel through the airport this year, he said.<\/p>\n<p>In July, more than 40,000 passengers traveled through the airport making it the busiest month ever for the airport, he said.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:mshinn@durangoherald.com\">mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Snow, thunderstorms blamed for travel disruptions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6155,6003,5737,5736,5735,5879,5841],"tags":[916,915,28,259,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-transport","category-durango-la-plata-county-airport","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-news","category-transportation","category-weather","tag-air-transport","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines","tag-transportation","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92611,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73957\/revisions\/92611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73957"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}