A winter storm foiling holiday travel plans mixed with inflation’s impacts at the grocery store hit families as a one-two punch this holiday.
For some families, the day before Christmas Eve is a time to take to the air in hopes of big hugs upon arrival. But when the arrivals and departures board at Sky Harbor shows delays or cancellations, some were airing their grievances to mother nature.
As of early Friday evening, more than 400 flights were delayed at Sky Habor and more than 120 were canceled, according to Flight Aware.
Most of them coming from the Midwest and Northeast where lows are in the teens and single digits. Some cities facing whiteout conditions from an arctic blast.
“It worried me when my flight got delayed, it started worrying me a little bit,” said Cody Pomery, glad to be standing with his wife and two girls.
Pomery hasn't seen his family in over a month.
That wait got longer with a delayed flight as he was coming back from Utah on Friday evening.
His youngest jumped into her dad's arms just in time for Christmas.
While they waited, they held signs to welcome him home.
Meanwhile, for those in charge of cooking the “roast beast” and all the sides, rising costs have shown signs of slowing but are still substantially higher than around this time last year.
We found Sarah Noel fresh from grocery shopping for her student’s holiday party.
With a name like that, she spreads holiday cheer year-round as a paraprofessional and that's despite inflations impact at every turn.
She bought two boxes of chips and two packages of cookies.
“For those four items it was $36 dollars,” she said.
New consumer data from Friday shows price increases continued to moderate in November, indicating painfully high prices may have peaked.
The consumer price index for Arizona shows holiday essentials like meat are 5% more, dairy products are 16% more, produce is up 10% from this time last year and alcoholic beverages are over 5% more.
Those numbers compared to October shows meat prices starting to decline by 1% while all other items previously mentioned are up just slightly.
For Noel, when you're spending during the holiday, you'll take any relief you can get.
