« Previous | Main | Next »

An Update on Winter Weather Delays

December 19, 2008 2:21 PM

EARLY EVENING UPDATE: More than 1,000 cancellations nationwide are plaguing holiday travelers today. Cancellations and lengthy delays of up to five and a half hours continue to face travelers at New York City area's three major airports, including JFK, LaGuardia and Newark. Winter weather is also backing up planes in Philadelphia.

In New Jersey, Teterboro airport keeps opening and closing due to snow removal. Elsewhere in the country, travelers are faring okay in Chicago with no major delays. Milwaukee's airport is closed due to snow removal. In the west, Salt Lake City is experiencing delays due to weather. Air travelers will also encounter minor delays in San Francisco.

Between Delta, Northwest and nine Delta connection flights, the carriers are in the neighborhood of canceling more than 300 flights collectively. Delta says it has been able to rebook more than 90 percent of its passengers within 8 hours of their original flights.

***
Today is one of the two busiest travel days of the holiday season, according to the Air Transport Association, but winter weather across much of the country means travelers today are facing significant delays.

Around 2 p.m. Friday, here's information from the FAA about how delays are stacking up.

At New Jersey's Newark airport: Snow and ice in the New York City region is causing some arriving flights to be delayed an average of 5 hours and 27 minutes.

At New York's JFK: Travelers are looking at an average 3 hour and 20 minute delay on some arriving flights at JFK.

At New York's LaGuardia: Some arriving flights are delayed an average of 4 hour and 20 minutes.

In Philadelphia: Wet weather, snow and ice have arriving flights delayed an average of 2 hours and 55 minutes.

At Chicago O'Hare: The winter weather means air travelers are looking at gate hold and taxi delays between 16 and 30 minutes.

In San Francisco: Weather and low ceilings are creating minor delays of 15 minutes or less.

Airlines, too are reporting on their status as of 2 p.m. All airlines are allowing travelers to rebook with no penalty.

Southwest has canceled 35 flights today.

Continental has pre-canceled about 90 flights for today in Newark.

US Airways is reporting 19 system-wide cancellations at mainline today due to bad weather among its mainline flights and another 265 cancellations on its Express flights.

At United, 67 flights were canceled as of noon CST.

At American, 45 roundtrips were canceled out of O'Hare because of today's snow, but expects the situation to improve later in the day. American reported that it had about two dozen deicing trucks working this morning. American Eagle also canceled 32 roundtrips so far. At LaGuardia, American canceled 16 flights, including 6 between LaGuardia and O'Hare. At JFK, the carrier pre-canceled 7 flights for this afternoon. In Boston, American pre-canceled six flights for this evening because the snow is expected to be heavy there later in this afternoon.

JetBlue, whose largest operation is at JFK, has canceled 12 flights and are facing delays at the airport. Expectations are similar for JetBlue's flights out of Boston's Logan Airport.

Air Tran has canceled about 70 flights system-wide today because of severe weather in the Midwest and Northeast.

-ABC News' Lisa Stark

December 19, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (0)

User Comments

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: