Several flights to Las Vegas from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Love Field were canceled or postponed Tuesday after tornadoes ripped through North Texas.
Representatives of McCarran International Airport don’t track flight cancellations, but verified that some schedules were affected by the more than a dozen tornadoes that struck the area, damaging hundreds of homes.
The Dallas Morning News reported the cancellation of 500 arrivals and departures on American Airlines and its commuter subsidiary, American Eagle, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Fort Worth-based American is the dominant carrier on the route between Dallas-Fort Worth International and Las Vegas, with 11 daily nonstop flights. Spirit Airlines — which announced new service between Dallas and Mexico City on Tuesday — offers two nonstop flights a day.
Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas, has 12 scheduled flights a day between Love Field and McCarran, each operating with one stop.
Several flights were canceled or delayed with schedules affected today, as well, because dozens of grounded planes had to be inspected for hail damage. American encouraged customers to monitor schedule changes by visiting the airline’s website, www.AA.com .
In most cases, American assigned passengers to new flights but the airline also offered to refund money for purchased tickets.
Some flights originating in Las Vegas also were affected by the storm because the aircraft was grounded as a result of the weather.
In another weather-related incident, two flight attendants and five passengers on a United Airlines flight from Tampa to Houston were injured Wednesday morning when the plane hit turbulence over Louisiana.