a powerful storm with heavy lighning came through at around 9am and caused about 1/2 of the flights to be cancelled due to diversions, no crews, no planes, etc.

I finally got out at ~2pm on a flight scheduled for 10:45am. At least I got out. There were many many people that will be stuck in DFW until tomorrow.

YIKES, that does sound like a mess, but I'm glad you got out.

Not to hijack, but I would love to hear your opinion on this thread, AAFF:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35065120

That's nothing. My wife was flying from Alburquerque to DFW on American during that storm yesterday morning. Her flight was supposed to leave at 10:30 am. She didn't get a flight out until 6:50 pm.

The whole day she watched Southwest planes take off as scheduled. When she asked the American agent how Southwest was flying when American couldn't, the agent told her that the storms were very high in the sky and that SW flies lower than AA.

Southwest doesn't fly to DFW.

rkk....The wife was in ABQ.........

I know. So, Southwest taking off to every corners in the world has no relevance that the issue is DFW, right?

Yes, that's true that SW doesn't fly to DFW, but they fly to Love Field which is only about 10 miles further east, and she was watching the SW flights to Love leave without problem. So her question as to how SW could fly through the storm when AA couldn't certainly had relevance.

Gate agents know little about flying. The answer she was given was totally wrong.

The problem is specific DFW. First, thunderstorms can be very localized. I don't like in the Dallas area, so I can't say for sure what's going on there that day.

Second, DAL has much fewer aircraft movements than DFW, and any thunderstorms or delays will affect a hub airline much more than the other airlines. That's always true, everywhere. Like a little fog at Heathrow will affect British Airways worldwide operation, but some other airlines may have no issues into and out of London that day.

Same thing here. DFW is AA's largest hub. A thunderstorm shutting down the airport for an hour will delay hundreds of flights systemwide.

Yea, apparently the AA agents were under major stress yesterday and telling passengers anything to get them to go away. My wife knew the explanation made little sense. It just sort of topped off the day she was having. We both thought it was humorous.