Airline customers stayed chill when warned well ahead of cancelled flights

Nearly 20,000 flights were canceled due to Superstorm Sandy's destruction, but airline customers, for the most part, don't seem to be up in arms. Most airlines began notifying people of flight cancellations and their rescheduling policies well before the storm hit. That made all the difference, according to Mike Boyd, chairman of the aviation research firm Boyd Group International.

And the widespread use of the Internet and social media has made it easier for carriers to get the most updated information out to customers. Airlines are getting better at communicating with customers this way, according to Boyd, and that made a big difference in how they handled the thousands of flights canceled by Sandy.