More than 4,500 flights were canceled and more than 8,450 flights were delayed
More than 4,500 flights scheduled for yesterday and today have been canceled as a powerful winter storm batters the US to coincide with the start of a holiday season that some predict could see Americans travel the most on record.
More than 2,350 flights were cancelled yesterday, Thursday, and others 2,120 flights were canceled todayaccording to flight tracking website FlightAware.
Railroad company Amtrak has canceled dozens of train routes leading up to Christmas, causing travel problems for tens of thousands of holiday-trippers.
Others 8,450 flights were delayed yesterday, including more than a third of American Airlines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines flights.
Southwest canceled yesterday 865 flightsabout 1/5 of all its scheduled flights, while for today, it has already canceled another 550 flights.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced yesterday that severe winter weather is causing blizzard conditions in the Midwestern states, with the biggest travel problems expected in Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis-St.
Delta Air Lines canceled 140 flights yesterday out of a total of 4,400 and 90 for today, according to FlightAware, while warning that “additional cancellations will be necessary for Friday as the storm continues to affect the airline’s flight schedule in Detroit and northeastern states”.
In the early hours today 25% of flights were cancelled that would take off from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, but also 37% of flights at Chicago Midway, while canceled and 27% of flights from Denver Airport.
Amtrak announced that it is canceling several dozen scheduled train services in the Midwest for the Christmas season due to bad weather, including services in Michigan, Illinois and Missouri, as well as on the rail network between New York and Chicago.
Brandon Mathis, 24, was waiting at LaGuardia Airport in New York for his flight to Atlanta, Georgia, to spend Christmas with his family. His flight was cancelled, he said.
“We’re trying to search with our phones. Let’s find other routes. We might as well take the bus from here to Atlanta, which means we’ll have to travel for 21 hours. This is really uncomfortable. But, we will do everything we can to get there.”
In the seven-day period that ended Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that 16.2 million passengers passed through mandatory security checks. This figure is slightly less than the 16.5 million passengers who went through security checks in the same period of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year’s holiday season was marred by an outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic among their staff, forcing airlines to cancel thousands of flights.
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