Hurricane Beryl disrupts air traffic in Texas, with 80% of Houston flights canceled

Airports across the state canceled hundreds of flights as Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the Texas coast Monday morning, bringing torrential rain and damaging winds. Houston, which is directly in the path of the Category 1 storm, was hardest hit, grounding more than 1,000 flights at its two airports.

Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the second-busiest in Texas and 15th-busiest nationally, has canceled 91% of its outbound flights and 83% of its inbound flights, according to FlightAware.com. The city’s other hub, William P. Hobby International Airport, has canceled 79% of its departures and 68% of its arrivals, resulting in more than 1,000 groundings across the city.

Both Houston airports recorded wind gusts of 80 mph (130 km/h) during the morning storm, while the city was hit with 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) of rainfall, said Alex DaSilva, chief hurricane expert at AccuWeather. Although most of the “very heavy” rain is over, he said, Houston will continue to see a “whirlwind” of precipitation around the city as well as wind gusts of 30 to 40 mph (48 to 65 km/h).

The vast majority of the affected flights were United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, both of which have major hubs in Houston at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport, respectively. United was forced to cancel 85% of its flights to and from IAH, or 481 in total, while Southwest canceled 80%, or 280, of its flights through Houston.

Flights from both Houston airports to and from Dallas-Fort Worth were significantly disrupted by the storms, with 82% and 100% of Intercontinental and Hobby’s inbound flights to DFW canceled, respectively. Dallas-Love Field canceled more than half of its inbound flights and 57% of its outbound flights to Hobby, as well as two flights to and from Bush Intercontinental.

Elsewhere in Texas, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, San Antonio International Airport and Corpus Christi International Airport canceled 45 outbound flights between them, with Corpus Christi’s 16 cancellations representing 50% of its total outbound traffic.

Southwest Airlines, United and American Airlines have all issued travel advisories through Tuesday across the state, including at airports in Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Each airline is offering flight changes at no additional cost to affected travelers who want to rebook.

Hurricane season typically runs from August to October, DaSilva said, making a tropical storm like Beryl extremely rare. Beryl is only the 10th tropical storm to make landfall in Texas since 1851, he said. But no major cities or airports in Texas will be impacted by the storm as it continues inland, though some minor rainfall or delays are expected as the storm moves east of Dallas.

The wave of cancellations comes after the busiest day in U.S. air travel history on Sunday, when more than three million passengers were screened by TSA agents across the country following the July 4 holiday.