Winter flight cancellations by US airport
Reagan National (DCA) had the highest winter cancellation rate among these 39 airports: 3.92% (5,342 of 136,433) in winters 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26. Salt Lake (SLC) had the lowest, 1.08%.
Across the same airports, 2.22% of 4,526,352 scheduled departures were cancelled, and 66.16% of those cancellations were weather-coded (CancellationCode B).
Source: DelayGuard analysis of US DOT/BTS data, winters 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 (1 December through the end of February).
Which airports cancel the most flights in winter?
Cancelled departures divided by scheduled departures. Diverted flights remain in the denominator. CancellationCode B (BTS weather). weatherShareOfCancellations is B-coded cancellations divided by all cancellations. weatherCancelRate is B-coded cancellations divided by scheduled departures.
Every winter in the download had all three months, and each is in the pooled rate.
Winter 2022-23 includes Southwest's December 2022 meltdown, so it pulls some Southwest airports up the default ranking. The Department of Transportation's 11 December 2023 order says that between 21 December 2022 and 2 January 2023 Southwest cancelled or significantly delayed over 16,900 flights. At Midway, 998 of 1,017 December 2022 cancellations fell on 21–30 December, and 955 of those were Southwest (BTS reporting airline WN). The default rank keeps every complete winter. The last two columns rank 2023-24, 2024-25, 2025-26 only. Without winter 2022-23, Midway (MDW), Love Field (DAL), Burbank (BUR) drop out of the top 8.
| Reagan National (DCA) | 1 | 3.92% | 136,433 | 5,342 | 73.27% | 2.87% | 4.51% | 1 |
| Midway (MDW) | 2 | 3.67% | 68,238 | 2,507 | 65.90% | 2.42% | 2.10% | 12 |
| LaGuardia (LGA) | 3 | 3.47% | 144,645 | 5,020 | 70.96% | 2.46% | 3.65% | 2 |
| Love Field (DAL) | 4 | 3.22% | 69,531 | 2,242 | 65.88% | 2.12% | 1.88% | 17 |
| Burbank (BUR) | 5 | 2.99% | 28,137 | 840 | 44.40% | 1.33% | 1.69% | 21 |
| Logan (BOS) | 6 | 2.93% | 127,809 | 3,741 | 68.16% | 2.00% | 3.14% | 4 |
| DFW | 7 | 2.90% | 278,138 | 8,057 | 92.68% | 2.68% | 2.77% | 7 |
| Newark (EWR) | 8 | 2.75% | 124,910 | 3,435 | 70.01% | 1.93% | 3.17% | 3 |
| St. Louis (STL) | 9 | 2.72% | 57,634 | 1,570 | 65.86% | 1.79% | 2.11% | 11 |
| BWI | 10 | 2.68% | 87,358 | 2,341 | 62.41% | 1.67% | 2.20% | 9 |
| JFK | 11 | 2.59% | 112,366 | 2,911 | 72.76% | 1.88% | 2.99% | 5 |
| Philadelphia (PHL) | 12 | 2.58% | 82,297 | 2,126 | 78.46% | 2.03% | 2.88% | 6 |
| San Diego (SAN) | 13 | 2.40% | 86,842 | 2,084 | 42.95% | 1.03% | 1.78% | 18 |
| Hobby (HOU) | 14 | 2.39% | 51,731 | 1,234 | 51.30% | 1.22% | 1.44% | 28 |
| Austin (AUS) | 15 | 2.37% | 81,506 | 1,931 | 61.52% | 1.46% | 1.49% | 27 |
| Charlotte (CLT) | 16 | 2.32% | 185,979 | 4,323 | 87.90% | 2.04% | 2.67% | 8 |
| Sea-Tac (SEA) | 17 | 2.24% | 143,579 | 3,213 | 39.59% | 0.89% | 1.71% | 19 |
| Fort Lauderdale (FLL) | 18 | 2.15% | 96,738 | 2,081 | 56.17% | 1.21% | 2.10% | 12 |
| John Wayne (SNA) | 19 | 2.14% | 42,961 | 918 | 37.47% | 0.80% | 1.19% | 30 |
| Oakland (OAK) | 20 | 2.13% | 38,019 | 810 | 29.63% | 0.63% | 0.86% | 36 |
| O'Hare (ORD) | 21 | 2.12% | 263,549 | 5,587 | 75.69% | 1.60% | 2.06% | 15 |
| Denver (DEN) | 22 | 2.07% | 283,530 | 5,882 | 65.50% | 1.36% | 1.22% | 29 |
| Cincinnati (CVG) | 23 | 2.05% | 33,256 | 681 | 72.10% | 1.48% | 2.02% | 16 |
| San Jose (SJC) | 24 | 2.04% | 45,607 | 930 | 29.25% | 0.60% | 0.90% | 35 |
| Dulles (IAD) | 25 | 2.03% | 48,922 | 992 | 59.88% | 1.21% | 2.19% | 10 |
| San Antonio (SAT) | 26 | 2.00% | 37,219 | 746 | 56.70% | 1.14% | 1.50% | 26 |
| Minneapolis (MSP) | 27 | 1.95% | 107,139 | 2,090 | 78.61% | 1.53% | 1.17% | 31 |
| Houston Intercontinental (IAH) | 28 | 1.94% | 110,724 | 2,147 | 67.44% | 1.31% | 2.07% | 14 |
| Detroit (DTW) | 29 | 1.88% | 114,949 | 2,163 | 76.84% | 1.45% | 1.67% | 22 |
| Sacramento (SMF) | 29 | 1.88% | 50,267 | 944 | 34.75% | 0.65% | 0.80% | 38 |
| Orlando (MCO) | 31 | 1.83% | 162,937 | 2,980 | 59.16% | 1.08% | 1.58% | 25 |
| SFO | 32 | 1.82% | 127,642 | 2,324 | 48.41% | 0.88% | 1.63% | 23 |
| Ontario (ONT) | 33 | 1.78% | 22,797 | 405 | 38.27% | 0.68% | 0.97% | 34 |
| Harry Reid (LAS) | 34 | 1.66% | 175,944 | 2,922 | 46.06% | 0.77% | 1.02% | 33 |
| Atlanta (ATL) | 35 | 1.64% | 305,443 | 5,004 | 64.59% | 1.06% | 1.71% | 19 |
| Miami (MIA) | 36 | 1.56% | 114,198 | 1,783 | 71.85% | 1.12% | 1.62% | 24 |
| Los Angeles (LAX) | 37 | 1.36% | 180,296 | 2,444 | 51.27% | 0.69% | 1.14% | 32 |
| Sky Harbor (PHX) | 38 | 1.25% | 187,689 | 2,341 | 55.15% | 0.69% | 0.85% | 37 |
| Salt Lake (SLC) | 39 | 1.08% | 109,393 | 1,183 | 61.79% | 0.67% | 0.73% | 39 |
Do snowy airports cancel more flights?
MSP, DEN and SLC did not each cancel less than both Houston airports and both Dallas airports. Winter cancellation rates were MSP 1.95%, DEN 2.07%, SLC 1.08%, against IAH 1.94%, HOU 2.39%, DFW 2.90%, DAL 3.22%.
Supported only when each of MSP, DEN and SLC has a lower pooled winter cancellation rate than each of IAH, HOU, DFW and DAL.
The comparison uses the pooled winter cancellation rate for each airport. It is not a weather model, and it does not separate snow from other reasons except for the CancellationCode B column in the table.
What changed these winters in January 2025?
Reagan National (DCA) cancelled 9.35% of January 2025 departures (1,097 of 11,734), against 5.69% in January 2024. That January includes 325 cancellations on 6 January 2025, a winter-storm day. The National Weather Service recorded 7.2 inches of snow at Reagan National for the 5–6 January storm. On 29 January 2025, PSA Airlines flight 5342 collided with a US Army helicopter near Reagan National (NTSB). DCA's winter rate includes that January.
Houston Intercontinental (IAH) cancelled 5.60% of January 2025 departures (518 of 9,250), and Hobby (HOU) cancelled 6.28% of January 2025 departures (259 of 4,122). A National Weather Service storm report for inland Harris County records snow at both IAH and HOU on 21 January 2025, during a Gulf Coast winter storm on 20–21 January. Those January rates are inside the 2024-25 winter figures for Houston.
DFW cancelled 6.34% of January 2025 departures (1,592 of 25,124) and Love Field (DAL) cancelled 5.11% of January 2025 departures (294 of 5,755), for the Dallas side of the same comparison.
How were winter cancellations counted?
1 December through the last day of February. The pooled rate includes only winters whose three months are in the downloaded files.
Pooled winters: 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25, 2025-26. BTS months in this build: 2022-12, 2023-01, 2023-02, 2023-03, 2023-04, 2023-05, 2023-06, 2023-07, 2023-08, 2023-09, 2023-10, 2023-11, 2023-12, 2024-01, 2024-02, 2024-03, 2024-04, 2024-05, 2024-06, 2024-07, 2024-08, 2024-09, 2024-10, 2024-11, 2024-12, 2025-01, 2025-02, 2025-03, 2025-04, 2025-05, 2025-06, 2025-07, 2025-08, 2025-09, 2025-10, 2025-11, 2025-12, 2026-01, 2026-02. 22,544,714 flights. Decimal half-even to 2 decimal places (percent and percentage-point differences of those percents). Script: script/buildDataStudies.py.
Informational only. This is not legal advice.
Download the table
The CSV matches the table in its published rank order.
Cite this
DelayGuard, "Winter flight cancellations by US airport," https://www.delayguard.ai/research/winter-flight-cancellations-by-airport, analysis of US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics On-Time Reporting data, winters 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26. Generated 2026-10-20.