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Flight Cancellations Due To Winter Storm Juno
Cost
U.S.
Economy $230 Million |
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January 29, 2015 - Cancelled flights from the
January 2015 nor'easter winter storm, Juno that
struck the upper East Coast this week cost the U.S. economy $230 million in
passengers’ lost activity, economists at the
U.S. Travel Association calculate.
Juno was an active and powerful winter storm
that went across the Central and Eastern United States. The storm disrupted transportation,
with snow emergencies declared in six states and
travel bans enacted in
Connecticut,
New Jersey, New
York City, Massachusetts and
Rhode Island in which
thousands of flights were cancelled.
Up to 34.5 in of snow fell in
Worcester,
Massachusetts, marking the city's
largest storm total accumulation on record.
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The Blue Hill Observatory in Massachusetts observed 30.8 in, or the second largest
storm total accumulation on record, while both
Providence,
Rhode Island and Portland, Maine
recorded their fourth largest storm total
accumulations on record, at 19.1 in. Boston,
Massachusetts
observed 24.6 in (62 cm) of snow, its largest
January storm total accumulation and its sixth
largest storm total accumulation on record.
Each cancelled domestic flight costs the economy
$31,600 under a formula U.S. Travel researchers
developed last year to highlight air travel
infrastructure issues. The economic loss figure
of $230 million is based on approximately 7,300
domestic flights cancelled due to the recent
storm, according to information derived from
media reports.
And that number only accounts for passengers on
those flights and the spending they would
otherwise inject into the economy, not the
impact on the airline industry. Because of
discrepancies in how each carrier tabulates its
costs, there is no industry-wide data available
for the airline sector.
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