Air travelers in the northeast were left waiting in airports or sent home after a winter storm canceled or delayed thousands of flights.
A winter storm hit the region early on Saturday, bringing snow, ice, and treacherous conditions on the roads and the runways across the northeast.
By early Saturday, approximately six to 10 inches of snow had fallen across an area from Syracuse to Long Island and parts of Connecticut, according to the National Weather Service.
New York City received two to four inches of snow overnight, with 4.3 inches reported at Central Park, according to the NWS.
“The good news is that the heaviest snow is done,” NWS meteorologist Bob Oravec told Reuters. “Only a few flurries remain this morning and those will taper off by the afternoon.”
Even still, more than 14,000 domestic flights were canceled or delayed by mid-morning Saturday. The majority of the disruptions were in the New York area, including at John F Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and Newark Liberty International Airport, according to FlightAware.
International flights also took a hit; approximately 2,100 international flights scheduled to land in the U.S. on Saturday were canceled according to the flight tracking site.
Airline officials told the New York Times that they had preemptively canceled flights in advance of the forecasted storms.
“The worst thing you can do for your whole operation is to cancel flights really close into the time they’re supposed to depart,” Chris Perry, a spokesman for Southwest Airlines, told the Times. “Then you’re stranding airplanes and you’re stranding flight crews along with the customers.”
He said that early cancelations had become common for the industry to avoid cascading problems caused by last-minute disruptions.
“It’s not worth the risk to put our airplanes and our crews there waiting to see if they’re going to be able to depart,” he said. “If they’re not able to, then we’re stranded, and that’s how you get into what becomes a multiday operational failure.”
The flight disruptions occurred during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. Airlines for America, the airline industry’s lobbying group, expects carriers to fly a record-setting 52.6 million people between December 19 and January 5. Friday and Saturday — the days the storm hit New York and New Jersey — were predicted to be among the busiest days, according to CNBC.
The weather calmed on Saturday morning, providing a welcome reprieve to travelers worried about reaching their destinations on time.
“The storm is definitely winding down, a little bit of flurries across the Northeast this morning,” Oravec told the Associated Press.
The snowfall wasn’t a bane for everyone though; Jennifer Yokley, a tourist visiting New York from North Carolina, told the AP she was excited to see the city with a dusting of white.
“I think it was absolutely beautiful,” she said.
