Hello everyone,

As someone who works in the industry, I'd like to dispel some common misconceptions and set a general expectation with regards to major service disruptions like the one we are likely to have as travelers. My brother suggested I say something before it goes all crazy, and it is right to let you know what is about to happen.

Let me state first that Hurricane Irma is a storm that defies the NOAA models for what defines category 5. According to recent models, this storm will assault southern Florida on a scale that lacks precedent. Note to those in Florida sticking out the storm, please write your SSN in Sharpie on both arms, we (the National Guard) will need it to ID you in the event you do not make it. Makes things a lot easier for us and your surviving family.

Airline service nation wide will be disrupted. This is not a sensationalized post, nor is it meant to inspire any kind of fear and trepidation - it is simply a matter of fact. The reason for this is multi-fold.

In support of current NOAA models, the storm is projected to make landfall in southern Florida in the early morning on Sunday, maintaining hurricane status despite landfall through the northern end of Florida on Sunday evening. It will begin impacting the state of Georgia Sunday afternoon/evening and will clear through by Tuesday.

This will disrupt airline travel nationwide as a result of misplaced crewmembers. I assure you that neither my airline, nor the others are understaffed (as it was posted about in the last major service disruption in April). When a storm hits Atlanta - as Irma is projected, many things happen in sequence. Of course many know that Atlanta is home to Delta Airlines, few realize how much other airlines count on Delta as well as ATL airport in general for crew transportation.

Let's examine a scenario:

A crewmember who is slated to swap out of Atlanta has a flight cancelled.

Said crewmember cannot operate the flight from Atlanta to Kansas City, because their flight to Atlanta was cancelled. Subsequently, the crew that they were relieving in Atlanta cannot continue onto the next stop because they are legally out of their duty day.

The crew in Kansas City that was going to get on that jet and then travel to Midway-Chicago will then miss their flight. The flight they were going to operate from Midway-Chicago now has to cancel because the crew operating to Midway-Chicago is outside of their duty day window.

This cascades on and on. Airline crews use their own, in addition to other airlines when needed to maneuver around and get to their assigned airports of embarkation. When they cannot engage in transit as normal, flights cancel.

I understand there will be a lot of frustration over the coming days and possibly weeks, but please be aware that us in the industry are doing our best to return the operation to normal. It is, after all, in our best interest to provide the consumer with the best possible customer service. However, it will be difficult, there will be layovers, hotels issued in lieu of flights, delayed and cancelled flights, as well as general customer service related shortcomings given the difficulty. I assure you there is a human factor to all of this, we do not want to see you sleeping at the gate. Gate agents are human beings just like the rest of us as are our ramp personnel, maintenance personnel, and customer support groups. We still have our families to attend to and our own personal issues and concerns with the storm, especially those directly effected. We will absolutely do the best we can, please be patient and remind your fellow travelers.

Onward and upward.