Some US airlines have reduced their schedules, prepared for further cancellations and waived certain last-minute flight-change fees in reaction to a winter storm that is moving through the US Midwest and Northeast. American Airlines has issued travel alerts for 87 airports in the Midwest and Northeast, enabling passengers whose travel plans are affected by winter storm Elliott to rebook their flights without change fees. American says that if a passenger chooses not to fly to or from an airport covered by the current waiver, the Fort Worth-based carrier will waive change fees for future travel. Noting that snow, wind and frigid temperatures have hit the northern plains in the USA, including its hub at Minneapolis-St Paul International, Delta Air Lines said on 21 December that it expected "limited" flight cancellations. Like American, Delta has issued weather advisories, allowing customers to rebook their travel for a later date. "The decision to cancel flights is never one Delta takes lightly, especially during the holiday travel season," the Atlanta-based carrier states. "But the safety of our customers and our people is paramount." Southwest Airlines says that it has reduced operations at some airports it serves, primarily Denver and Chicago Midway. As of 21 December, Southwest has cancelled approximately 500 of the nearly 4,000 flights scheduled to depart on 22 and 23 December.

Tokyo Narita airport handled 1.79 million passengers in November, up 194% year on year. The number of international passengers grew by 527% to nearly 1.24 million, while the number of domestic passengers increased by 33% to almost 546,100, operator Narita International Airport discloses. Total aircraft movements increased 23% to 15,084. The airport handled over 176,350t of international cargo during the month, down 22% year on year.

Wizz Air has added its seventh aircraft to its base at Sofia airport in Bulgaria for a total of Airbus 10 aircraft. The Central European low-cost carrier says it has also launched two new routes from Sofia to Stockholm and to Hamburg, operating the routes at twice-weekly and thrice-weekly frequencies, respectively. It also increased the frequency on 11 of its most attractive routes, Wizz acting network officer Evelin Jeckel states. “Wizz Air now operates 30 routes from Sofia to 16 countries in Europe and the Middle East, including recently announced flights to the unique Arabian city of Riyadh,” Jeckel says.