Last update: 6:20 p.m. ET.
The holiday air travel nightmare will continue for at least one more day.
The winter storm that has snarled flights from coast to coast this week is about to head offshore, but not before it brings wind, rain, snow and poor visibility to airports in the Northeast.
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More than 700 U.S. flights have been canceled. Not all can be directly attributed to the storm, but most come at airports that have suffered the storm's effects during the past 72 hours, according to data from flight-tracking service FlightAware.
Coupled with the count from Christmas Day and Wednesday, the three-day cancellation tally from this storm now stands at nearly 2,630. Throw in the pre-Christmas storm in which airlines axed more than 1,800 flights last Thursday (Dec. 20) and Friday (Dec .21), and holiday fliers have now endured more than 4,300 cancellations during the Christmas week.
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As is now a common occurrence during major weather events, most big airlines have enacted flexible rebooking policies for customers scheduled to fly to or through the storms' pattern.
Of particular concern to fliers today will be the three New York City-area airports as well as Philadelphia. Long delays and cancellations are possible at the delay-prone airports, with wind and low clouds in the forecast for much of today.
As of 6:20 p.m. ET, FlightAware calculates 109 combined arrivals and departures had been canceled so far today at Philadelphia, a hub for US Airways. At LaGuardia — a hub for Delta — the total stands at 69. At Newark, a United hub, the total is 78 as of 6:20 p.m. ET. And at New York JFK — a hub for American, Delta and JetBlue — 35 flights have been axed.
And, as travelers know all too well these days, problems in New York and Philadelphia often ripple out to create problems at airports elsewhere.
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Unfortunately for holiday fliers, significant disruptions are being reported at some other busy hubs as well. In Detroit, a Delta hub, 46 flights have been canceled as of 6:20 p.m. At Washington National — a US Airways hub — the total stands at 81 as of 6:20 p.m. At Boston, a JetBlue hub, the number is 35.
Other notable cancellation tallies as of 6:20 p.m. ET: Houston Bush Intercontinental (56); Chicago O'Hare (53); Dallas/Fort Worth (51); Charlotte (50); and Burlington, Vt. (38).
The number of cancellations is expected to grow throughout the day at airports in the Northeast, and the cascading effect likely will be felt at dozens of other airports across the USA.
And, even when flights are operating, delays are a threat at many key airports today.
Already, as of 6:20 p.m. ET, the Federal Aviation Administration's flight delay map shows delays averaging anywhere from 1 to 2 hours at New York JFK (wind), Newark (wind) and New York LaGuardia (wind). Backups had been a problem much of the day in Fort Lauderdale, where runway construction is a factor, but delays there had subsided by evening.
Going forward, the toughest task for airlines might be finding available seats for the tens of thousands of passengers who have had their flight plans change. With airplanes flying with near-record number of seats filled, it could take days for airlines find enough unsold seats on their most-popular routes.
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MORE: Busy day at DFW as stranded travelers jockey for seats (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
"Planes are very full this week, more full than usual, and we're working to reaccomodate folks as quickly as we can," American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller tells the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
American suffered hundreds of cancellations at its Dallas/Fort Worth hub, though its challenge to clear a backlog of stranded fliers will likely be issue at all big airlines in the coming days.
As for the backlog of fliers, one big group of them could be found in Philadelphia, where nearly 300 flights were canceled yesterday. The Philadelphia Inquirer says about 230 passengers ended up spending the night in the terminals there.
And, on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, there apparently was a similar scene at Dallas/Fort Worth International, where The Dallas Morning News reports that 1,000 passengers spent Christmas night at the airport because of a wave of flight cancellations.
"We kept the concessions open until midnight," airport spokeswoman Cynthia Vega says to the Morning News. "We brought in cots, blankets, toiletries and vouchers for those who wanted to go to a nearby hotel. We turned down the lighting and the music to make for a peaceful night."
Back to today, there are signs that conditions are improving.
In Buffalo, for example, cancellations have dropped to 20 today -- down from about 50 yesterday.
Most of today's cancellations -- all morning departures -- are the result of planes that never arrived as scheduled on Wednesday. Even with Wednesday's problems, The Buffalo News writes those flights "were canceled or delayed because of delays at other airports."
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Source: http://www.news.theusalinks.com/2012/12/27/cancellations-top-2500-as-air-travel-chaos-persists/
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