<p>Snow boots! I always forget I have snow boots in the closet! Time to whip them out tomorrow instead of the Uggs like I did today.</p>
<p>It’s pretty bad out here. My cousin, who lives in Stamford but works in Port Chester, said it took him almost 3 hours to get home. </p>
<p>Good luck, ML, and everyone trying to fly tomorrow.</p>
<p>^^ That’s usually a 20-minute trip.</p>
<p>Spirit just cancelled tomorrow morning’s flight into LaGuardia. Son is going to try Southwest, which gets in later in the afternoon</p>
<p>^^Definitely better odds with Southwest, though better luck if he’s going to JFK, not LGA. Spirit had better refund for all your costs with them!</p>
<p>Already close to 10" west of Newark. We are now in the 10-14" band. Schools have already called off tomorrow. </p>
<p>Rutgers New Brunswick - opening at 10am. Classes that start before then are cancelled. D1 is doing a happy dance.</p>
<p>VH - Yes, I know. (I’m originally from Westchester County and live now in Fairfield County) A lot of friends and family were sharing pics of the traffic they were stuck in this afternoon. Crazy! A 20 minute commute took ~2 hours.</p>
<p>This is one of those times I am glad I live in Southern California.</p>
<p>Would love to know if folks get responses and/ or credit - refunds from Spirit. We had a similar issue with Spirit last year and they were unhelpful and unresponsive. We have boycotted Spirit ever since.</p>
<p>I’ll post about the refund, when I get it.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Southwest isn’t doing much better. The plane in Detroit is “frozen”, so son will miss his connection in Chicago. They’re working on “unfreezing” it, and have now booked on the last flight to LaGuardia, which leaves Chicago at 8:30pm. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s time to look for a 3rd airline.</p>
<p>“The plane in Detroit is “frozen”, so son will miss his connection in Chicago. They’re working on “unfreezing” it”</p>
<p>What does that mean? An airplane isn’t there, they haven’t decided what to do with it, it’s delayed, ??</p>
<p>I think they mean it literally. What happens to planes when it’s really cold? I figured they are left out all night and something happens. </p>
<p>I had the same explanation in November, when I flew on Frontier. It took a while (2 hours) to get the plane ready in the morning. </p>
<p>Am I just gullible?</p>
<p>Spirit Airlines is known for its poor customer service and policies. Good luck.</p>
<p>We had a similar situation with southwest in early January. We ended up banking the money with SW, and flying our kid on Delta. It cost a LOT (lots of canceled flights, lots of folks looking for flights, few seats), but it got him home. </p>
<p>At least with SW, he will be able to use the banked money for a future flight.</p>
<p>Toledo, I don’t think you’re gullible. The plane MUST be de-iced, because the wings are not designed to support the weight of ice and/or snow (and of course the aerodynamic properties would change, also). It can be a frustrating process, because sometimes the plane has to wait for takeoff so long after the de-icing that more ice develops and they have to go through the same procedure! De-icing is incredibly expensive, too.</p>
<p>De-icing isn’t usually a big deal. A little bit of a delay, unless you’re at somewhere that they’re unaccustomed to de-icing, but I think Chicago and Detroit should be pretty good at it. If there’s no precipitation at the time, sometimes they de-ice before the passengers even show, but often they get everyone onboard and then de-ice/anti-ice either at the gate or at a specific point at the airport. I don’t know what maintenance has to do differently for a “frozen” aircraft, my airplane is always ready when I get there (and it shouldn’t be something that time consuming), but I don’t fly into Artic environments either. De-icing shouldn’t be a huge delay or cancellation.</p>
<p>Here’s a new one (new to me, at least). Son was just about to board when they announced, “the battery is dead.”</p>
<p>Oh, toledo – this is not going well!!</p>
<p>Okay, that’s not the usual thing. Don’t think I’ve had that happen in 30 years of flying. That might happen if they left the airplane on battery power throughout the night, instead of turning them all off or leaving it on external power. Usually they are recharging through the external power or APU, if turned on. Regardless, if it’s at a major hub, they ought to be able to replace that pretty quickly.</p>
<p>On a happier note, looking at departures out of Newark, looks like almost everything is departing on time. So maybe getting closer to normal. Weather is clear, winds have died down, but very cold.</p>