Unraveling Extreme Weather Impacts on Air Transportation and Passenger Delays using Location-based Data

Abstract

Extreme weather poses significant threats to air transportation systems, causing flight rerouting and cancellations, as well as passenger travel delays. With the growing frequency of extreme weather hazards, it is essential to understand the extent to which disruptions in flights and subsequent cancellations impact passenger delays. This study focuses on quantifying the impacts of a recent extreme weather event (2022 Winter Storm Elliott) on the U.S. air transportation system by investigating passenger delays measured based on dwell time at airports using privacy-preserving location-based datasets. The study determines total dwell time and dwell time per anonymized user at airports during the extreme weather event and computes the impact based on changes in values compared to the same period in the previous year. The results show that the storm event caused passengers significant delays, as characterized by a substantial increase in airport dwell time. Factor analysis shows that airports with a greater passenger flow and a greater portion of flights from decentralized airlines aggravated passengers delays during the winter storm. The vulnerability of airports was mainly due to the direct storm exposure, and the influence of network cascading impacts were limited. The findings of this study provide novel insights and quantification of the extent of extreme weather impacts on air transportation at individual airports and national levels. These outcomes could inform airport owners and operators, as well as airlines, about the extent of vulnerability and provide useful information for weather-related risk assessment of air transportation systems.