Airports across North America were thrown into fresh turmoil this week as a new wave of cancellations and delays tied to regional carrier SkyWest rippled far beyond the United States, snarling travel to Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico at the height of an already punishing winter season. From sun seekers bound for beach resorts to business travelers shuttling between U.S. hubs, thousands of passengers found themselves stranded, rebooked or simply out of options as weather, congestion and operational strain converged into another bruising test for the air travel system.
SkyWest At The Center Of A New Disruption Wave
SkyWest, one of the largest regional airlines in North America and a key feeder for major carriers including Delta, United, American and Alaska, has once again emerged as a focal point of widespread disruption. Operating flights under big-airline brands, the carrier plays an outsized role in connecting small and mid-sized U.S. cities to large domestic and international gateways. When its operations falter, the resulting cascade is felt across networks and borders.
In recent days, that cascade has been dramatic. Fresh data on Monday, February 16, showed SkyWest among the U.S. airlines with notable cancellation and delay tallies, contributing to a broader total of 196 canceled flights and more than 2,500 delays nationwide involving major carriers from Delta and United to JetBlue and Spirit. While SkyWest is only one piece of that picture, its role as a connector means each scrubbed departure can sever multiple downstream links, including flights to Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico coded as mainline operations by partner airlines.
Travel analysts note that regional carriers like SkyWest sit at a pressure point in the industry. Their fleets and crews are scheduled tightly to maximize utilization, and many operate from weather-prone hubs in the Midwest, Mountain West and Great Lakes regions. When storms intensify or airport congestion spikes, these finely tuned schedules can quickly unravel, triggering the kind of rolling cancellations and missed connections that have frustrated travelers throughout this winter.
For passengers, the branding can also obscure the true source of the problem. Tickets and boarding passes may display the logo of a major airline, but the small print often reveals that the flight is “operated by” a regional partner. That dynamic has been on full display this week as customers vented about missed holidays and broken itineraries, only to discover that their stranded aircraft and crew belonged to SkyWest, even if their loyalty program did not.
Stormy Winter Meets Fragile Flight Networks
The latest SkyWest-related disruption comes at the tail end of an exceptionally harsh winter across North America that has battered airline schedules for weeks. A persistent cold wave through January and early February delivered bitter temperatures to vast stretches of Canada, the United States and northern Mexico, straining power systems and complicating airport operations from de-icing to ground handling.
Multiple major winter storms, including a late-January system that blanketed more than half of the contiguous United States in snow, have already produced some of the worst mass cancellation days seen since the early months of the pandemic. On January 25 alone, airlines scrapped more than ten thousand flights as runways closed, crews timed out and aircraft were repositioned in anticipation of hazardous conditions. Subsequent weather events, including an early February bomb cyclone in the southeastern United States, added further disruption, especially along the busy East Coast corridor.
Against that backdrop, the current wave of cancellations looks less like an isolated failure and more like the latest chapter in a winter-long stress test. Each new storm front or cold blast adds friction to a system already running near its limits. When weather hits key connecting airports that SkyWest and its partners rely on, from Chicago and Denver to Salt Lake City and Minneapolis, the strain quickly radiates to other parts of the network, including cross-border routes.
As a result, flights that appear to be far removed from the worst of the weather, such as departures from southern U.S. gateways to resort areas in Mexico or the Caribbean, have seen growing vulnerability. Aircraft and crews that should have been in place after earlier legs are instead out of sync or stranded at snowbound airports, leading to cancellations for destinations enjoying blue skies hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
Mexico-Bound Travelers Face Sudden Setbacks
Those hoping to trade the winter misery for Mexican sunshine have been among the hardest hit by the latest round of SkyWest-linked disruptions. In recent days, U.S. airports that serve as primary connectors to Mexico, such as Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Denver and Los Angeles, have all experienced elevated levels of cancellations and delays. A significant portion of the impacted flights were regional segments operated by SkyWest on behalf of major carriers, feeding passengers to north-south routes.
When those feeder legs are canceled, the effect on Mexico-bound travel is immediate. Travelers originating in smaller markets who rely on a single regional hop to reach a U.S. hub often discover that alternative options are limited or non-existent on the same day. Even when mainline flights from the hubs to Mexican destinations like Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Mexico City depart as scheduled, the seats are effectively lost to passengers whose regional connections never materialized.
Social media and local reports over the weekend and into Monday documented families stuck in U.S. connection points with resort reservations already ticking away. Many were offered rerouting a day or two later, or via circuitous itineraries that added extra stops and overnight stays. Some chose to cancel their trips entirely once it became clear that a four- or five-day vacation would be reduced to a rushed weekend.
Airlines have responded by issuing weather-related waivers for a wide range of routes serving Mexico, allowing customers to change travel dates or destinations without change fees. However, those waivers do little to expand actual seat capacity in the immediate term, leaving travelers in a competitive scramble for limited rebooking options. For SkyWest, which operates smaller regional jets rather than large narrowbodies or widebodies, each canceled flight represents fewer seats to redistribute across the network, increasing the odds that some passengers will be left waiting.
Canada and Cross-Border Routes Under Pressure
To the north, travel between the United States and Canada has also felt the knock-on effects of SkyWest’s operational struggles and the continuing volatility of winter weather. Canadian airports from Vancouver and Calgary to Toronto and Montreal have endured waves of delays and cancellations tied to the same systems that have challenged U.S. carriers, including brutal cold and heavy snowfall that constrained runway capacity and ground support operations.
Cross-border routes, especially those connecting smaller U.S. cities to Canadian hubs through regional flights, are uniquely exposed. When SkyWest cuts service on U.S. feeder legs due to crew availability or weather restrictions, key connections into Canada disappear, even when the transborder flights themselves are marked as mainline services. This has produced a growing number of broken itineraries in recent days for travelers heading to or from Canadian destinations for business meetings, ski holidays and family visits.
Some Canadian carriers have also reported elevated levels of disruption, adding another layer of complexity. For passengers hoping to connect from a SkyWest-operated U.S. flight to a Canadian carrier at airports like Seattle, Minneapolis or Chicago, a delayed or canceled inbound segment has often meant missed connections with limited backup options. Winter is typically a busy season for transborder travel, particularly to ski regions in British Columbia and Alberta as well as urban centers in Ontario and Quebec, making each canceled seat more consequential.
Travel advisers are warning that the combination of regional airline stress, intense winter conditions and full flights is leaving little margin for error on U.S.–Canada routes. They recommend that passengers traveling over the next several days build in extra time for connections, avoid last departures of the day when possible and monitor their itineraries closely, as schedule changes are being loaded into systems on a rolling basis.
Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Caught in the Crossfire
Puerto Rico, which serves as both a U.S. domestic destination and a major Caribbean hub, has been a recurring flashpoint for disruption this winter. Earlier in January, temporary flight restrictions and airspace changes related to U.S. military operations in Venezuela forced airlines to cancel or reroute numerous flights across the eastern Caribbean, including services to San Juan and neighboring islands. Although those restrictions were lifted and schedules partially restored, the underlying fragility in the system has remained.
The latest wave of cancellations tied to SkyWest and its partner airlines has once again unsettled travel plans to Puerto Rico and surrounding destinations. San Juan’s Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport has been highlighted among a group of hubs experiencing significant cancellations and delays across the U.S. network this winter. Even when flights into and out of Puerto Rico are not directly operated by SkyWest, disruption at mainland connection points has been enough to strand or displace connecting passengers by the thousands.
Caribbean-focused travel advisers report that some travelers bound for beach resorts and cruise departures in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other nearby islands have been forced into last-minute itinerary changes stemming from failed regional connections. In several cases, travelers have missed embarkation windows for cruises after regional flights failed to deliver them to mainland ports in time, despite long-planned itineraries that appeared resilient on paper.
Airlines serving Puerto Rico have deployed a familiar playbook of travel waivers and rebooking efforts, but the growing sense among passengers is one of fatigue and uncertainty. For a region still working to rebuild tourism momentum, each wave of cancellations and stranded passengers risks denting confidence among travelers who might otherwise choose Caribbean vacations over long-haul trips further afield.
Scenes Of Frustration At Major U.S. Hubs
In terminals from Miami and Philadelphia to New York, Chicago and San Francisco, scenes of frustration and exhaustion have become familiar as travelers grapple with the latest disruption. On Monday, February 16, fresh figures showed nearly two hundred cancellations and more than two thousand five hundred delays affecting U.S. airports, with major carriers including SkyWest’s partners once again near the top of the list.
At some hubs, long lines formed at customer service desks as passengers competed for scarce rebooking options after learning that their regional SkyWest-operated flights had been grounded. Others huddled around charging stations, refreshing airline apps and flight trackers in search of reliable updates. Announcements of rolling delays, aircraft swaps and gate changes echoed through concourses already crowded with travelers from earlier disrupted flights.
Airports in warm-weather destinations such as Miami and San Juan, which ordinarily offer a sense of escape from the winter grind, saw departure boards filled with red and yellow status alerts. Travelers hoping to connect onward to Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean often discovered that their seemingly straightforward one-stop itineraries had been reduced to a patchwork of uncertainty and last-minute improvisation.
Airport authorities have urged passengers to arrive early, verify flight status frequently and plan for the possibility of extended waits. Some have opened overflow waiting areas or partnered with local agencies to provide cots and basic amenities during the worst overnight disruptions. However, with storms still in the forecast for parts of the country and airline schedules already stretched thin, there is limited capacity to absorb additional shocks without further queues and cancellations.
Operational Strain, Crew Shortages And Tight Schedules
Behind the scenes, the challenges for SkyWest and its partner airlines extend well beyond the immediate weather maps. Industry observers say a mix of lingering pilot and crew shortages, tight aircraft utilization, regulatory duty-time limits and the complexity of modern airline scheduling have combined to leave minimal slack in the system. As a result, even moderate disruptions can escalate quickly, particularly for regional carriers that run dense schedules with smaller fleets and aircraft.
When winter storms force ground stops, runway closures or de-icing delays at key hubs, crews can rapidly bump up against maximum duty-time limits, requiring airlines to cancel or delay flights to remain compliant with safety regulations. Reassigning crews at the last minute is more difficult in a labor market where spare pilots and flight attendants are scarce and often already committed to full rosters. Regional airlines like SkyWest, which operate many short segments per day, are especially vulnerable to such timing constraints.
Maintenance and aircraft positioning add further layers of complexity. Aircraft that are out of place due to previous cancellations must sometimes be ferried empty across the network to restore balance, competing with revenue flights for limited runway slots and airspace capacity. In cold environments, de-icing operations can slow the departure rate dramatically, lengthening queues and causing further knock-on delays that resonate through the day’s schedule.
Airline executives have argued that they are investing heavily in resilience, including better crew planning tools, upgraded de-icing equipment and expanded customer communication platforms. Yet for travelers facing a string of text messages announcing delay after delay before an eventual cancellation, those long-term improvements offer limited comfort. The lived experience remains one of fragile reliability, where even routine trips can feel precarious in peak winter weeks.
What Travelers Can Do As Disruptions Continue
With winter weather patterns still active across large portions of North America and airline networks showing clear signs of strain, experts caution that additional disruption is likely in the short term for routes involving SkyWest and other carriers. Passengers with upcoming travel to Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico or across the United States over the next several days are being advised to adopt a more defensive mindset when planning and managing their trips.
Travel agents and consumer advocates emphasize several practical steps. Booking earlier flights in the day, especially when relying on regional connections, can increase the odds of finding backup options if disruptions occur. Allowing longer connection windows, particularly when routing through weather-prone hubs, can reduce the risk of missed links. Whenever possible, choosing itineraries with fewer segments and avoiding tight back-to-back connections between regional and international flights can also improve resilience.
Equally important is constant monitoring. Airlines are adjusting schedules and issuing waivers on a rolling basis, sometimes adding flexibility for trips affected by forecast storms before the first flakes fall. Travelers are urged to enable push notifications in airline apps, check flight status repeatedly in the 24 hours before departure and verify that their contact details are up to date to receive rebooking offers promptly if cancellations occur.
For now, the intersection of SkyWest’s operational challenges, relentless winter conditions and surging travel demand has created a volatile environment in which even well-planned journeys to nearby international destinations can be upended with little warning. Until weather patterns stabilize and airlines regain breathing room in their schedules, many travelers bound for Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico and points across the United States will remain on edge, watching the departure boards and hoping their flight is not the next one to turn red.