Why ‘this is a good time of the year to have bad weather’ at Harrisburg International Airport

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — By the most obvious measures of all — delays and cancellations — this snowstorm could have been worse: Harrisburg International Airport had one canceled arrival and one canceled departure (scheduled on the same Delta aircraft from and then to Atlanta).

Still, those cancelations (like a similar cancelation Monday) plus some delays inconvienced travelers. The most important reason of all this snowstorm wasn’t too bad?

There just aren’t very many travelers to inconvenience.

“The first 20 days for January are just the slowest time of the year,” airport spokesman Scott Miller said. “So this is a good time of the year to have bad weather.”

On top of that, Tuesday is generally the slowest day of any week. In other words, fewer people were booked on flights today than on almost any other day of the year.

Sure, that’s small consolation if you’re one of those people, like Samuel Wabnitz, traveling with several other men to Air Force basic training but — even though their flight to Charlotte wasn’t canceled — stuck for the night in Harrisburg because they would have missed their connection from Charlotte to San Antonio.

Still, a flight canceled during peak holiday travel could strand someone for days because of so few seats available on other flights; Wabnitz and his new friends had no trouble getting seats on tomorrow’s 6 a.m. flight.

Patti Montgomery did everything she could to get home from Harrisburg to Memphis, including arriving at the airport three hours early. But she knew that might not be enough.

“As long as I get to Charlotte, they’re all clear there,” she said. “And then I have to land in Memphis. Hopefully, I can land in Memphis, because they got over a foot of snow.”

Amtrak, which canceled trains earlier this month because of snow and last week because of heavy rain, operated smoothly Tuesday — good news for Nate Harris, catching a train from Harrisburg to New York City for a work conference. His wife Heather and toddler son Augie took him to the station and watched him board the train, which left about five minutes late.

Harris said he was glad to be going to New York by train in Tuesday’s weather rather than by plane — or car.