Air North is providing some comfort to Air Canada Jazz passengers whose flights have been cancelled to and from Vancouver.

Joe Sparling, president of the Yukon's airline, said this morning's Vancouver flight was near full with the additional Jazz passengers, and this afternoon's was booking up.

"We are seeing a fair bit of that," he said early this afternoon.

Weather delays forced Jazz to cancel Sunday night's Vancouver-to-Whitehorse flight, and consequently this morning's Whitehorse-Vancouver flight, said Jazz spokeswoman Debra Williams.

She said this afternoon's flight was also cancelled, though the status of tonight's flight was still undetermined.

Passengers who have been delayed or are scheduled to fly on Jazz or Air Canada should check the website - Aircanada.com - for flight status before leaving for the airport, Williams recommended.

Sparling said weather in both Vancouver and Alberta has caused some delays in Air North flights, "but nothing too serious."

Sunday's flight out of Vancouver was delayed by 40 minutes, he pointed out, and there was a delay coming out of Alberta a couple of days ago.

Sparling, who was piloting this afternoon's Boeing 737 flight to Alberta, said under the circumstances, airport crews down south are doing a commendable job keeping traffic moving, particularly in Vancouver.

For an airport that barely sees any snow, it's pretty impressive how Vancouver can put together so quickly a response team to plow the runways, de-ice the aircraft and so forth, he said.

"I do not think we were de-iced in Vancouver at all last year," he said. "This year, it's been two or three times already, and more to come by the looks of it."

Obviously, said Sparling, the Christmas rush is the worst time of the year that nasty weather can hit. In this case, however, it's not just one airport or province, but airports across the country being hammered by snow, he said.

Environment Canada has described the situation as "snowmageddon."

Sparling said it's easier for Air North to stay on track with its two regional routes to Vancouver, and Edmonton and Calgary than it is for Air Canada or Jazz, which could be counting on one aircraft for several connections in a day.

It may be, he suggested, that a particular aircraft is scheduled to fly 11 or 12 hours, to a handful of different cities.

When you start getting a delay here and delay there, he noted, pretty soon you can't catch up to the schedule.

Air Canada spokeswoman Angela Mah said from Vancouver this morning the national airline is looking at its recovery plan, to see where larger or extra planes could be added to routes to deal with the backlog, and Jazz will be doing the same thing.

The Vancouver airport, she said, was hit by 30 centimetres of snow over the weekend, though the skies were clear and sunny this morning.