Assessment of imperfect weather forecasts on airline and passenger planning

With a perfect forecast of the severe snowstorm: - Airlines cancel more flights, reducing their costs but increasing passenger disruption - Airline costs decrease by approximately $40 million - Passenger costs increase by approximately $9 million. There is a classic tradeoff between airline costs and passenger costs. The answer to the question “what is the effect of a better weather forecast for severe winter storms on the NAS” is: - Better airline information allows them to plan their operations better and save dollars - But the decisions they make disrupt passenger travel and increase the passenger costs. Whether this result is generalizable is debatable.