Dan Cook

One good indicator for how long airlines expect lingering disruptions is how they handle their free change waivers. All the major U.S. carriers are currently allowing free changes for travel scheduled through Saturday - though we’ll see if that extends through Sunday. And Southwest’s waiver covers travel through Monday.

The question increasingly isn’t “What about my Sunday flight?” It’s how long these delays and cancellations drag into next week. Especially since we have no clarity on when ATC systems will be back and the ground stop will be lifted. This is a massive, systemwide disruption that will likely take days to unravel. Planes and crews are out of position - exacerbated by sudden diversions, something we don’t see with typical airline meltdowns. It will almost certainly require a hard reset after the ground stop is lifted: a mass of cancellations to give the airline time and space to get back on place. That alone will be very painful. Some airlines will do better than others.