Hurricane Harvey Makes Landfall, Weakens; ‘Catastrophic Flooding’ Thru Tues; Flights Cancelled; Cruise Ships …

1,000 Flights Cancelled; Cruise Ships Rerouted

Harvey is affecting travel across the South, with airlines cancelling flights and issuing weather waivers for flyers to change their flights without penalty or fees while cruise lines scramble to keep ships and passengers out of harm’s way.

Carnival Cruise Line’s Freedom and Valor ships will no longer disembark passengers in Galveston on Saturday, but instead divert to New Orleans, CNBC reported.

Carnival’s Breeze will stay over in Cozumel an extra night.

Royal Caribbean says it is “actively monitoring” the hurricane to determine where its Liberty of the Seas will eventually dock, the network said.

As of 12pm ET Saturday, air carriers had cancelled at least 500 flights for the day in the storm’s path, including Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and Hobby Airport (HOU), Corpus Christi International (CRP), and Dallas-Fort Worth International (DFW), among others, according to FlightAware.

Carriers already had scrapped at least 300 scheduled flights for Sunday, including in San Antonio (SAT) and New Orleans (MSY), on top of the 170 or so flights that airlines had cancelled on Friday.

In addition, a few flights in the affected areas were also preemptively cancelled.

Airlines already virtually closed up operations at CRP airport in Corpus Christi ahead of the storm, the airport said.

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Airlines Issue Weather Waivers

Delta Air Lines issued a Harvey-related waiver, allowing flyers from Houston’s two commercial airports (IAH and HOU) as well as Austin’s AUS and San Antonio’s SAT airport to rebook travel planned for Friday through Monday.

United Airlines issued a broader waiver that covered ten airports for Friday through Tuesday.

Those airports include: Austin (AUS); Brownsville, TX (BRO); College Station, TX (CLL); Corpus Christi, TX (CRP); Harlingen, TX (HRL); Houston (IAH); Lake Charles, LA (LCH); Laredo, TX (LRD); McAllen, TX (MFE); and San Antonio (SAT).

American Airlines included 11 airports in two states on its waiver for travel August 25-29.

The airports covered are: Austin (AUS); Beaumont/Port Arthur, TX (BPT); Brownsville, TX (BRO); College Station, TX (CLL); Corpus Christi, TX (CRP); Houston (IAH HOU); Lake Charles, LA (LCH); Laredo, TX (LRD); McAllen, TX (MFE); and San Antonio (SAT).

Frontier Airlines’ waiver included four travel dates, this Thursday through Sunday, for four airports: AUS, SAT, IAH, and New Orleans (MSY).

Storm surge near Corpus Christi, TX; courtesy: NWS