Hail Damages Southwest Planes At Denver International Airport
DENVER (CBS4) - Southwest Airlines said Monday morning that 60 flights have been canceled in and out of Denver International Airport after severe storms produced heavy rain and some hail late Sunday night and early Monday morning.
More than a dozen of Southwest's planes were damaged by the hail but no other airline appears to have had any impacts. Those aircraft may be placed back into service once cleared or repaired by the airlines technical operations team.
By daybreak the rain had stopped, but more severe weather is expected later in the day Monday.
Severe weather in other parts of the Midwest were also apparently leading to some outgoing Southwest Airlines flight delays at DIA.
CBS4 meteorologist Ashton Altieri reported the airport officially reported dime size (0.75 inch diameter) hail Monday morning at about 12:20 am.
"We've been puzzled why Southwest has announced so many cancellations reportedly due to hail but the other airlines have been relatively unscathed," Altieri said. "A closer look at the archive radar data shows the most intense part of the storm – the section of the storm containing the majority of the hail - stayed over the north side of the airport. So the C Gates were likely impacted far more than the A and B Gates located farther south. And of course Southwest is based in C."