Jan. 28–Commercial airline travel between San Diego and Chicago could be affected by the potentially life-threatening ‘polar vortex’ weather that’s beginning to descend on the Midwest.
Southwest Airlines said Sunday that flights in and out of Chicago Midway Airport could be delayed, diverted or canceled through Friday, Feb. 1.
The airline operates daily flights between San Diego and Midway. The Chicago airport also is a key transfer point between San Diego and the Northeast, which also will receive unusually cold weather this week.
The National Weather Service says that the polar vortex — a mass of extraordinarily cold air dropping into the country from the Arctic — could drop temperatures to minus-23 degrees on Tuesday night in Chicago, and to minus 21 degrees on Wednesday night. The temperature could plunge below minus-30 degrees in other parts of the Midwest. Forecasters say the wind chill could be minus 40 on Wednesday night in northern Illinois.
The cold weather will spread into the Northeast.
Southwest said that on Monday the weather also could affect major airports in Buffalo, Cleveland, Des Moines, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Rochester.
United Airlines has issued weather-related travel waivers for dozens of airports in the Midwest and Northeast due to the polar vortex. The airline said that such waivers enable travelers to change to alternate flights without paying a change fee. The changes can be made through Jan. 29.
The affected airports include, but aren’t limited to, Buffalo, New York-Kennedy, Cleveland, New York-Newark, Philadelphia, Ottawa and Quebec City. The fee will be in effect through Feb. 1 at Chicago-O’Hare.
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