Rare snow snarls Las Vegas airport; big U.S. storms

Flying to the Eastern or Western U.S. today or Thursday? Good luck. Major storms are tripping up air traffic all over. And get this: There’s even snow in Las Vegas, causing flight cancellations, diversions and an FAA order grounding flights headed to McCarran international Airport (LAS).

Las Vegas may get up to six inches of snow, the National Weather Service said in a warning this afternoon, Dec. 17. And McCarran doesn’t even have snowplows, officials say.

[For a photo gallery of snow falling in Las Vegas, check out the Las Vegas Sun's "Winter storm warning for Las Vegas, 6 inches of snow possible."]

Because the bad weather is hitting airline hubs, you can be delayed flying to or from anywhere in the U.S. today through Thursday, including LAX in Los Angeles, where storms have closed some freeways in the region.

The best advice: Check the websites of your airline, the airports and services such as Flightstats, which track delays. Many airlines are waiving change fees on rebooking affected flights; their websites have details. Take a good book or video game to the airport, and allow lots of time.

— Jane Engle, assistant Los Angeles Times Travel editor

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 5:43 pm by Jane Engle and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, California, Frequent Flier, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Luxury Travel, News, Tips & Advice, Winter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.