SUNDAY, JANUARY 4, 2026 -- So how were your holidays? If they involved travel, probably not great. But I loathe the idea of starting 2026 with an endless litany of woe, so we will start with some joyous travel news. Then the bad news, of course …

BOWERY BOYS (AND GIRLS)
An annual pre-Christmas dinner with friends had to be rescheduled, so we reconvened in Manhattan's Chinatown just before the New Year. My wife and I chose to spend a couple of days at Hotel 50 Bowery, part of Hyatt via its JDV division, once known as Joie de Vivre boutique hotels.

When, I ask, was the last time that you had a fun hotel stay? Hotel 50 Bowery checks a lot of out-of-the-box boxes that make lodgings interesting. It has a sense of place--rooms and public areas are fitted out with vaguely Chinese designs and furnishings. It has great views--of Manhattan, the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn. Rooms aren't gigantic--although 250 square feet or so is huge by New York standards. The staff seems routinely pleasant and engaged--always offering an extra perk or going a little bit more to help guests.

Hotel 50 Bowery also has a remarkable perk: a huge, comfortable lounge on the second floor open to all guests. The hotel has a chic rooftop bar, but no on-site restaurant, so the lounge offers complimentary coffee, tea and hot chocolate from early in the morning until 4pm. There's an oven, plates, utensils and other set-ups, too. And guests are encouraged to bring food and beverage from the seemingly endless number of food shops and restaurants surrounding the property. Guests--including my wife and I--had a grand old time enjoying the food and the freedom to dine on what they wish, when they wish it. And those that weren't interested in victuals were content to curl up with a book, their phone or a laptop and spend time in calm, commodious surroundings.

And now, as I warned, the bad holiday travel news.

DELTA POOCHES THE PILOT-SCHEDULING SYSTEM AGAIN
By my count, there are exactly 72,336,047 holiday songs--and not one of them celebrates the joys of a white Boxing Day. I guess I know why: The storm that raked large segments of the nation on the day after Christmas was a nightmare for travel. Thousands of flights were cancelled last weekend and tens of thousands more delayed.

The worst offender? Delta Air Lines, which cancelled almost 700 flights in three days. The weather was not worse in Delta's skies, of course, but the airline again melted down because its back-of-house IT is dreadful. For what seems like the hundredth time in the last decade, Delta's inability to match available crews to available aircraft made a difficult situation worse. In this particular instance, it was the pilot-scheduling system that was the creakiest.

For once, Delta didn't make excuses or blame others--Remember the times it scapegoated Georgia Power or CrowdStrike--for its failures. It didn't say why the issue happened--or why it hasn't fixed its problems after every other meltdown--or when it would be fixed.

So pray for fair weather because Delta is foul when the weather is foul.

AMTRAK WAS A MESS BECAUSE OF COURSE IT WAS
Once upon a time--and, I admit, I forget when that was--smart Northeast travelers avoided airlines and their faux shuttles and used Amtrak instead.

These days, however, Amtrak sucks. And sucks worse during the holidays. This year, Amtrak decided that it couldn't operate reliably in the mimimal snows and sleet. Throw in a few downed overhead lines near Boston and there were times when the entire NEC (Northeast Corridor) operation almost ground to a halt.

And it gets worse: Amtrak's newest fleets of trains, which were already years behind schedule and just beginning to be deployed, will be delayed even longer. The reason? Amtrak is years behind upgrading its train yards and maintenance facilities. The situation is so desperate that some or all of the NextGen Acela trainsets, which already had a rocky rollout, may have to be idled. Naturally, all this horrid news was buried in a report that the Amtrak Inspector General conveniently didn't release until the holidays, when nobody but us chickens were paying attention.

CANCELLED BY THE 'DON'-ROE DOCTRINE
Few will shed a tear over the political demise of Nicolás Maduro, the inept Venezuelan strongman who fiddled while average citizens of his oil-rich nation starved. The fate of the "Don-roe Doctrine," the new hemispheric imperative floated by Donald Trump? Ah, well, that's a story for another day--and a good therapist who specializes in narcissist behavior.

But what we can say is that yesterday's military action played absolute havoc with commercial travel around the Caribbean, just as some Americans were expecting to come home from their holidays in the sun. The FAA slapped surprise flight restrictions on the region, at a minimum to avoid a recurrence of the incident last month where a JetBlue flight almost collided with military aircraft.

The result? An almost total wipeout of flights. Delta Air Lines, for example, cancelled all service at 13 airports from Aruba, nearest to Venezuela, to San Juan. United, American, Southwest and JetBlue cancelled most of their service, too. One exception: Air Canada, which ran all of its flights because it was cleared by Canadian authorities to do so.

The numbers were ugly. Sixty percent of all the flights to/from Aruba were dumped. San Juan, too. At airports such as St. Thomas and Curacao, American, United, Delta and JetBlue cancelled all service.

Today has been almost as bad. Planes and crews are out of position--and airlines have little ability to move larger aircraft into the region.