Houston Airports Finally Re-Open as Tropical Storm Lidia Forms

Both Houston airports resumed limited flight operations Wednesday, posting identical notices to their Facebook pages.

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Houston William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) and Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) both resumed limited domestic airline passenger service and using a phased approach, plan to return to full service by the weekend. But both airports request that only passengers with a ticket for a confirmed, scheduled flight should go to the airport.

Late Wednesday showed close to 1,500 flights cancelled that day, with approximately 1,350 cancelled for Thursday and over 1,000 for Friday, according to FlightAware.com, but it’s currently unknown whether the airlines will resume some of those cancelled flights or simply ferry aircraft to other cities in order to not continue to impact other markets.

Since Harvey started impacting air travel last Friday, an estimated 7,250 of the 9,400 flights cancelled across the US came from one of the two Houston airports. Airlines, meanwhile, have further extended their flexibility rebooking policies for travel to/from Houston, with Air Canada, United, and Southwest allowing passengers booked up to September 12, 2017 to make new arrangements with no change fee.

For United, whose second largest hub is at IAH, the airline is said to be focusing on flying aircraft from Houston to other United hubs in order to move more stranded passengers and get them to their final destination, with United president Scott Kirby saying “If we can get them to our hubs, we can get them out to the rest of the world."

Meteorologists, meanwhile, are keeping their eye on Tropical Storm Lidia, which formed off the Pacific coast of Mexico. The storm is headed directly for Los Cabos and expected to hit the resort area early Thursday with gusty winds and heavy rain, according to The Weather Network.

The storm is sitting in an area favourable for intensification, and warm water temperatures and low vertical wind shear could bump the storm to hurricane status prior to landfall on Baja California.  A Hurricane watch is in effect for La Paz to Puerto Cortes, meaning that means that hurricane conditions are possible within that area.

Some airlines have posted flexible travel policies related to the storm, including American Airlines and Delta Airlines.

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