Thousands of flight cancellations push rental car demands through the roof
SAN JOSE - With thousands of flights cancelled due to harsh winter weather across the country, desperate times have called for desperate measures.
Some travelers have dealt with so many flight cancellations over the past few days that they have decided to give up on the idea of flying home, and are looking to drive home.
"I'm frustrated, just like everybody else," said Aaron Guadarrama.
Guadarrama has a reservation for a rental car and plans to drive home to Austin, Texas. He has dealt with several cancellations and rebookings over the past few days, and says it's his best shot of getting home efficiently.
"If I wait and risk the chance of getting rebooked and then pushed out again another 2, 3, 4 days - I've already missed 3 days of work, and so has my wife," he said. "We've gotta get home."
While numerous airlines have had to cancel flights over the past several days, Southwest Airlines has cancelled the most flights - several thousand from coast-to-coast.
"I've been in this business for a long time. This is definitely a one of a kind event, in my experience. I've never seen anything quite like this," said Scott Winter, a Deputy Director at Mineta San Jose International Airport. "I've still never quite seen a disruption quite as significant as the one that Southwest is experiencing right now."
With all of the cancellations, demand for rental cars is through the roof. That's making the situation tough for those who are trying to get out of the Bay Area, and for those who are coming to visit who planned on using a rental car, like Julie Schevlein.
She and her husband made it into the Bay Area without any issues, until they reached the rental car center.
"We thought oh, good, we had great luck. Then we get to the car rental place here, and they're all out of cars because everybody who had their flights cancelled are keeping their cars," she said.
Rather than spending their first day in California in Santa Cruz, they spent the majority of it at the rental car center at Mineta International Airport.
"Yeah, we pretty much missed the whole day today. We're trying to get to our hotel tonight. So, if we don't get the car by then, we don't know if we should cancel that reservation," she said.
Her take on the whole situation?
"It's sad because I think everybody was so excited to travel this year," she said.
