Weather Delays Differ By Airline

In nasty weather, not all airlines are created equal. And, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr, your chance of getting where you want to go may depend on the carrier you book.

He points out that, when more than a foot of snow buried the East Coast last month, United Airlines and American Airlines rushed to cancel flights in and out of the New York area.

Numbers provided by FlightStats, Inc. reveal American cancelled half of its New York flights, and United scrubbed 58 percent.

Those airlines argue that cancelling flights up front actually helped them recover from the storm more quickly, asserting fewer of their planes were delayed or diverted, meaning fewer passengers wound up stranded between destinations.

"Cancelling some flights can enable us to significantly reduce the amount of delay, so we're inconveniencing fewer customers," says United's Peter McDonald.

But other airlines took a more aggressive approach, and put up with lengthy delays, in battling through the weekend blizzard.

Continental, for instance, cancelled 37 percent of its flights, and Jet Blue just over a third, 34 percent.

Both of them run major hub operations through New York area airports so, for them, cancellations there can cause a domino effect, crippling operations across the country.

"They must challenge that storm, and they have to do it even if they do get planes in Newark and they can't get them out for the remainder of the day," says Tom Parsons, CEO of Bestfares.com. "At least they tried their best."

For airlines, says Orr, a big storm can be a tough call: Passengers hate delays, but despise being stranded by late cancellations.

"Canceled flights really irritate passengers tremendously, because you're stuck, and you usually can't get out of an airport for a day or more, and so it really disrupts their travel many times more than a delayed flight," notes David Stempler of the Air Travelers Association.

All airlines insist safety is their top concern, Orr adds, and no carrier will take unnecessary risks by flying into a storm. But it's also clear that, in facing the same bad weather, not all airlines approach it the same way.