Air travel across the United States has been severely disrupted after thousands of flights were cancelled following a massive winter storm in the country, sweeping from Texas towards New England. The system has grounded air traffic across large parts of the country and may be among the most severe winter storms in years.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, more than 13,000 US flights were cancelled between Saturday and Monday, with cancellations continuing to rise as the storm advances. The scale of disruption marks the worst period for air travel since last year’s US government shutdown, Bloomberg reported. Furthermore, some airlines are expected to see Sunday disruption levels approaching those recorded during the Covid pandemic, when air travel was sharply reduced, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
By 9:30 am New York local time on Saturday, cancellations accounted for 90% of outbound flights from Memphis, 76% from Oklahoma City and 75% from Dallas-Fort Worth. Apart from these, major disruption were also reported at airports in Austin, Charlotte and Nashville, while those in Washington and New York were expected to face increasing impact as the storm progresses.
For the country overall, the system could rank among the most expansive winter storms since the 1993 “superstorm”, Rob Carolan, chief executive officer of Hometown Forecast Services, was cited by Bloomberg.
US airlines had announced contingency measures earlier in the week, including waiving change fees and fare differences for passengers booked to travel over the weekend. American Airlines Group Inc. said it added nearly 1,800 extra seats on flights departing Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Friday, along with more than 1,400 seats on inbound flights scheduled for Sunday after the storm passes. The airline also introduced additional flights between Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Saturday.
Airports also began implementing winter weather preparations. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said on Friday that it had activated winter storm protocols at the major airports it operates: John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International and LaGuardia, including ensuring snow removal equipment was fuelled and ready for use.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said in a post on X, that its “weather and air traffic professionals are monitoring the winter storm around the clock to maintain the safety of the national airspace system.”
“This is a significant long-duration winter storm that threatens 180 million Americas with widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England,” Allison Santorelli, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center told Bloomberg.
“South of the snow area we are continuing to expect catastrophic ice accumulation,” Santorelli added, noting that up to 0.5 inch of ice may fall across parts of the US South and into Northern Virginia.
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport said its crews are “prepared to treat runways and taxiways on the airfield, as well as bridges, overpasses and roadways across airport property,” according to a statement issued on Friday.
Travellers are advised to check fly.faa.gov for real-time airport updates.
