Has there been a worse winter for freight?

During a conversation last night with a friend who works for one of the major forwarders, the talk turned to the weather – which is just fine here in Seattle, but not so fine in much of the rest of North America. In fact, she said, this was the worst year for weather impact on freight shipping that she could remember. Given the recent news reports of storms disrupting life and commerce in the US all winter, I wonder how many of you have a similar feeling.

Portland just dug out from a paralyzing snow storm. Atlanta dug out over a week ago, but only today did Delta Air Lines say its cargo operations there were back to normal (and even that announcement came with the caveat that there was still some backlog to be cleared). And now the whole US east coast north of Atlanta has been hit by an even worse storm.

Discussing these weather impacts this morning, one of my colleagues here at Cargo Facts/ACMG said he’d just read that more flights in the US had been cancelled/delayed in the last week than at any time since 9/11. While the news coverage of this will focus on stranded passengers, it has a huge impact on the air freight business as well.

I’d welcome your comments, anecdotes, and thoughts on how you’ve coped with what has turned out to be a very difficult winter – not just in the US, but from wherever you do business.