A massive winter storm made for a brutal travel day Monday, with widespread cancellations and delays at some of the nation’s busiest airports.
Widespread snow, sleet and freezing rain threatened nearly 180 million people — more than half the US population — in a path stretching from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England, the National Weather Service said Saturday night.
After sweeping through the South, the storm moved into the Northeast Monday and was expected to dump about 30 to 60 centimetres of snow from Washington through New York and Boston.
More than 10,800 flights were cancelled on Sunday, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that as of Sunday morning, the storm is the highest experienced cancellation event since the pandemic.
By Sunday evening, the majority of flights were cancelled at busy airports in the Northeast and elsewhere. LaGuardia Airport in New York closed Sunday afternoon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency said on its website the busy Queens airport grounded flights until 8pm.
In Philadelphia, 94% of flights, 326 flights, were cancelled. 91% of flights, 433 flights, were cancelled at LaGuardia Airport in New York. New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport had 460 flights cancelled, about 79% of flights, according to FlightAware.
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport said on its website that all airlines had cancelled departing flights for the day, about 420 flights.
Significant disruptions also hit major airport hubs in Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte, Philadelphia and Atlanta, home to the nation’s busiest airport.
Allan Lengel of Detroit planned to return Monday from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where the temperature has been in the 80s. But he’s staying until Wednesday after Delta suggested he change his reservation because of the weather impact on flights.
“Can’t say I’m disappointed. Frankly, I had been thinking of returning later because of frigid weather,” Lengel, 71, said, referring to conditions in Michigan.
American Airlines had cancelled over 1400 flights for Sunday, about 46% of its scheduled flights for Sunday, according to FlightAware. Delta Air Lines reported over 1300 cancellations and Southwest Airlines reported over 1260 cancellations for the day, while United Airlines had about 900. JetBlue had more than 570 cancelled flights, accounting for roughly 71% of its schedule for the day.
Vikrant Vaze, a Dartmouth professor specialising in commercial aviation logistics, said recovery from the storm cancellations and delays will take days if not longer. And even for travelers who aren’t in areas that were directly affected by weather, cascading delays could still affect their travel plans.
“Because there are so many different airlines involved, I think it’s going to come down heavily to the individual airline’s network structure, the extent of hit that each of them has had, and just the intrinsic capacity of the airlines to handle these massive disruptions,” he said.
