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Flying this summer may not be so friendly

A lot of travelers, tight security and rough weather could conspire to make the season the bumpiest since 2000.

WASHINGTON - Fliers beware: This summer vacation season could rival 2000, the worst for flight delays, cancellations and cranky travelers crammed into airport terminals.

Takeoffs are returning to pre-9/11 levels, and millions of tickets have been sold. Security-related delays are a concern, and so is one thing no one controls: Mother Nature.

"In bad weather, that's when it shuts down," said Jack Evans of the Air Transport Association, the industry group for major airlines.

Hot, humid air produces summer thunderstorms, typically in a zone that stretches from Texas to Michigan. They're too high to fly over, too dangerous to fly through and often too wide to fly around.

At hub airports, especially Chicago's O'Hare International, bad weather can combine with huge numbers of passengers to cause delays that cascade through the entire system. That's what happened in 2000, forcing thousands of passengers to sleep on terminal floors or sit fuming while their planes lingered on runways for hours.

Much has been done to improve the situation. Airports have added runways and terminals and improved efficiency, and the Federal Aviation Administration has adopted new strategies.

But the system has not been tested during a bad thunderstorm season, and the signs aren't encouraging.

The Memorial Day rush at Washington Dulles International Airport began early Thursday afternoon as security lines suddenly ballooned to thousands of travelers.

Many were taking advantage of cheap ticket prices. The average airfare for a 1,000-mile flight is now $118, 20 percent lower than it was in 2000, said Kenneth Mead, Transportation Department inspector general.

For the first 10 weeks of this year, slightly more flights were delayed, and delayed longer, than they were during the same period in 2000. Most delays were caused by weather.

At the 55 airports tracked by the FAA, more than 25 percent of flights were delayed for an average of 50 minutes from Jan. 1 to March 15, Mead said. That's up slightly from 24 percent of flights delayed an average of 48 minutes five years ago.

Mead said Thursday that six airports are likely to experience delays this summer: Philadelphia; New York-LaGuardia; Newark, N.J.; Dulles; Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale.

To avoid massive weather disruptions throughout the system, the FAA has planned alternate routes based on where storms are likely to develop.

The agency has installed faster and more accurate weather prediction equipment, which allows air traffic controllers and the airlines to respond more quickly to changes in weather systems.

Fly early. The atmosphere needs time to heat up to produce the severe weather that tends to hit later in the day. As the day gets later, delays can compound as weather fronts move.

Select nonstop flights. If you must take a connecting flight, consider connecting through airports other than major hubs.

Avoid flights that are chronically delayed. You can look up ontime performance by flight on the Bureau of Transportation Statistics Web site: http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/index.htm

[Last modified May 27, 2005, 00:39:13]