Charisse Jones

USAToday

Airlines likely lost tens of thousands of dollars for every flight stuck on the ground Friday because of a fire that disrupted air travel in and out of Chicago, industry experts say.

Hundreds of flights were unable to take off or land at Chicago's O'Hare, the second busiest airport in the country, and the nearby, smaller Midway Airport for several hours. The cause was a blaze that broke out in an Illinois air traffic control facility that guides flights across several Midwestern states.

That could cost airlines roughly $50,000 for each canceled flight, says Mike Boyd, president of Boyd Group International, an aviation consulting firm.

"The cost to airlines will be tens of millions'' of dollars, Boyd says, "probably high tens of millions depending on how long (the grounding) goes.''

Most of the losses won't be the result of passengers deciding not to travel at all and demanding a refund because their original flight was canceled, says Bob Harrell, president of the travel and aviation consulting firm Harrell Associates. The juggling of flight crews will likely lead to the biggest hit on carriers' bottom lines.

"People get disrupted, they get delayed, but they still tend to travel if they're already booked,'' Harrell says. "But it's very disruptive from a crew perspective because crews have limits on how much they can fly. So you may reach a crew duty limit and have to bring in another crew. That's an extra cost and you probably still have to pay the first guy.''

The impact on passengers could also be significant. Chicago O'Hare is a major air traffic portal and Midway is a key base for Southwest, which carries more passengers domestically than any other airline. When flight travel is disrupted in such an important hub, airports and fliers around the country are affected. Flights between two cities far away from Chicago might be delayed, for instance, because the crew or plane can't get there on time due to the Chicago snarl.

Harrell noted that the grounding of flights in and out of Chicago occurred during a relatively slow travel period, falling after summer has ended, before the winter holidays, and during the Jewish new year.

But late September and October tend to be a particularly busy period for business travelers, he says.

"October is the single heaviest month for business travel because there are no major holidays,'' Harrell says. "People are doing a lot of budget meetings, planning for next year, wrapping up achievements for this year. So there's a lot of planning activity in business that goes on.''

Joe Bates, vice president of research for the Global Business Travel Association says that the flight disruptions in Chicago could take a big financial toll on stranded corporate trekkers.

"For many of these individuals who are affected today they will (suffer) a financial impact not just in the lost time and productivity . . . but also in out-of-pocket costs,'' says Bates, adding that on any given day, roughly 25% of all those traveling by air are on the road for business.

"They likely won't get a refund on a hotel because it's last minute,'' he says. "If they were en route to a meeting or conference, they've clearly missed out on part of the conference . .. For those traveling domestically, the average cost is about $1,000. For those traveling internationally, this could have a much higher impact of upward (to) about $2,000.''