Airline passengers are facing travel chaos ahead of the holiday weekend, with thousands of flights canceled since Saturday and thousands more delayed.
According to FlightAware, there were 1,657 flights canceled on Saturday, 846 more on Sunday and a further 1,317 on Monday. So far on Tuesday, another 537 have been ditched. On top of this, there have been tens of thousands flights delayed over the last four days.
AAA expects a record 72.2 million Americans to travel for the three-day weekend, but stormy weather looks set to have frustrated plans for many. The delays came amid warnings of severe thunderstorms striking parts of the Plains, Great Lakes, and Northeast Monday, which look to shift east to the mid-Atlantic and East Coast Tuesday.
By Monday afternoon, at least four major airports on the East Coast were grappling with the heavy delays thanks to the bad weather.
John F. Kennedy, Newark Liberty, LaGuardia, Philadelphia International and Ronald Reagan Washington National were all affected, said the Federal Aviation Administration.
At John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, a complete ground stop was ordered by the FAA Monday, prompting nearly 100 flights to be canceled with severe delays because of a looming overnight thunderstorm.
“We are watching the potential for isolated to scattered severe thunderstorms on Tuesday. The main threat appears to be from 2 pm to 10 pm, with the primary threat from damaging winds. There is also a risk of a few thunderstorms early in the morning, but these should not be severe,” said the National Weather Service for New York Monday.
Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey suffered delays after outgoing flights were halted until 6:30 p.m., said the FAA. While LaGuardia in New York grounded all of its planes through 8 p.m., and over 200 flights were canceled, according to FlightAware.
Philadelphia International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport faced similar delays.
Over 500 flights were canceled into and out of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Georgia on Saturday after the state faced a cluster of thunderstorms that brought torrential rain, powerful winds, and flash flooding, according to NWS Atlanta.
Other airports affected along the East Coast included General Edward Lawrence Logan International in Massachusetts, which remains partially closed, with several others according to the FAA.
On Monday night, NWS Boston warned that warm temperatures would bring “isolated showers and storms, particularly towards western Massachusetts and Connecticut.”
The storms have been ongoing across at least a dozen states since Wednesday as hurricane season heads into its peak.
Hurricane season starts June 1 and typically ends on November 30.
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