Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/western-blizzard-causes-cancellation-of-thousands-of-flights Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The blizzard in Colorado has led to the cancellation of roughly 2,500 flights. NewsHour reports on what this will mean for travelers in the days ahead. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, how the blizzard in the West is disrupting travel during this busy holiday season. So far, the storm has led to the cancellation of about 2,500 flights. What will that mean for travelers in the days ahead?David Field is the U.S. editor for Airline Business magazine, and he joins me now with some answers.And, David, you've estimated that taking Denver out of the system takes out about 1 percent to 2 percent of flights nationwide. Why does Denver send such ripples out into the national network? DAVID FIELD, Airline Business Magazine: Denver's an extraordinarily important airport because of the system of hubs and spokes. We still have hub airports, big airports where a lot of airplanes go to let their passengers connect with other flights.It's one of the biggest in the country, the fifth-largest airport in the country, and it is the major western hub for United, which is number two in the world. And it's just about tied for number one in the country, which means you're talking about a lot of airplanes and a lot of people, and, as you can see, a lot of grief. RAY SUAREZ: Well, they say that even once they get the runways all plowed and the snow stops falling, it's going to take days to untangle this knot. Why does it take so long to work off that backlog? DAVID FIELD: Well, airlines schedule in an awfully complex way, particularly where hubs are involved. They schedule what are called lines of flight, which is airplane number 23 doesn't just go somewhere and go back. It goes from Boston to Chicago to Denver to Boise to Seattle back down, plop, plop, plop.And with each segment of flight, you also have the complexity of the pilots and the flight attendants' schedules, and they have to be scheduled not just for the whole line of flight, but each segment. One segment goes out, the rest of the segments get hurt. RAY SUAREZ: So once the snow stops and once the airline is cleared to reopen, all your equipment and your crews are in the wrong place? DAVID FIELD: That's right. And they're not just there in Denver stuck; they're in the wrong place around the country.