Topline
As the Northeast gets hammered with snow and wind, flight delays are mounting at major airports across the Midwest and along the East Coast.
A traveler checks the departures board at Boston Logan International Airport, one of several airports expected to be impacted by a winter storm on Tuesday. (Photo: Joseph Prezioso)
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
As of 12:30 p.m. EST Tuesday, over 3,600 flights in the United States were delayed and more than 140 cancelled, according to data from Flightaware.
The airports hit hardest are Chicago O’Hare, Atlanta, Washington DC’s Reagan National, Detroit and New York’s LaGuardia—all with triple-digit flight delays.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Airspace System dashboard showed 15 airports were treating departing aircraft with deicing fluid prior to takeoff.
United Airlines issued a travel alert covering 11 airports in major Northeast and Mid-Atlantic hubs—including Boston, New York, Philadelphia—allowing passengers ticketed to fly Tuesday to rebook at no charge for travel through Thursday, Dec. 4.
Southwest Airlines has a travel advisory covering nine airports in the Northeast, stretching from Portland in Maine, to Philadelphia, and allowing impacted passengers to rebook their flight to a different date within the next two weeks.
Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have not issued travel advisories for the Northeast storm.
On Monday, more than 10,000 flights were delayed across the U.S., with Chicago’s O’Hare being the worst hit with more than 1,300 flights delayed in and out of the airport, while 20 other U.S. airports experienced triple-digit delays.
Key Background
After dumping snow across the Midwest and snarling U.S. air traffic over the weekend, the storm system that led to more than 32,000 flight delays from Saturday to Monday has shifted east. The National Weather Service predicts “impactful snow for interior New England and the northern Mid-Atlantic” on Tuesday, with periodic snowfall rates of more than an inch per hour and totals of five to 10 inches.
Tuesday’s forecast calls for freezing rain in the Appalachians to heavy snow in New England.
NOAA/NWS
