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Hearing that Burbank's Bob Hope Airport might be grounding flights this morning, I headed over there at 5:30am. They were still allowing in the usual traffic, in spite of the fact that everyone was swerving all over the road in the dense fog. I almost got T-boned by a Flyaway shuttle. I spoke to a few passengers who were heading back to the parking structure after being told their flight to San Francisco was cancelled.
Passengers were still being dropped off and their bags checked as usual. Inside, the lines seemed pretty long for that hour of the morning. I spoke to a flight attendant reporting for work, who told me that all scheduled flights were taking off as far as she knew. An employee directing traffic said he had been told incoming flights were cancelled, but that he had not been told to stop anyone from dropping off passengers for departing flights. I asked him what time the first flights were scheduled to arrive. He told me they were expected at 7:30am.
I called Southwest Airlines' automated system and it reported flights departing up to and including 8:10am as cancelled. Flights departing at 9:30am and later were reported as on time. Online, all flights were showing as on time, including those the automated system reported as cancelled.
The Burbank Airport website reports delays of flights into San Francisco of 41 minutes due to weather. It does not report delays in and out of Burbank. At 6am, however, Burbank Airport spokesperson Victor Gill reported to NBC news that flights would not be departing this morning.
I could barely see five feet ahead of me on the way home so please, drive carefully. That axiom about the drive being the most dangerous part of the trip is definitely true today.