How is Air Travel Adapting to "Wacky Weather"?

All travelers know how frustrating it can be to change your travel plans due to bad weather. In the past, you lined up on a long line at the airport to talk to a travel representative.  A "doom and gloomer" would predict that if climate change increases weather volatility that this travel anxiety would rise.  But, the NY Times reports an optimistic new innovation introduced by the airlines.  The "weather waiver" allows forward looking people to have a backup plan ready.

So he was pleasantly surprised to find that Alaska Airlines had issued a “weather waiver” in advance of the possible storm. It allowed passengers flying in or out of the affected area to make no-cost changes to their itineraries on their own, without speaking to a representative.

Many other airlines are now doing likewise, recognizing that they can make life easier for themselves and their passengers by anticipating weather delays and putting travel changes in the hands of their customers (and their smartphones) before the situation escalates into an act-of-God crisis.

This, my friends, is the Climatopolis logic.  Small ball little steps that add up to "adaptation" to the new normal.    A good economist should figure out how to measure the consumer surplus generated from this reduction in anxiety.