More than 2,500 US flights canceled the day after Christmas so far
Dec 26, 2022, 6:31 AM | Updated: 11:26 am
Airlines are still digging themselves out from an intense day of storms that battered the eastern half of the United States on Friday and saw every state under some type of weather-related alert. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(CNN) — Last week’s winter weather travel mess is lingering like a hangover into this week.
In the wake of dangerously cold temperatures and winter weather across the nation, air transportation cancellations and delays continued to slam travelers on Monday.
More than 2,500 flights within, into or out of the US had already been canceled by 1 p.m. ET Monday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware, while more than 4,500 flights had been delayed.
The post-holiday travel chaos spurred by the massive storm is affecting much of the country. The top five airports for cancellations and delays are scattered in different regions far apart from each other. As of 1 p.m. ET, they were:
• Denver International Airport (DEN)
• Harry Reid International (LAS)
• Chicago Midway (MDW)
• Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI)
• Dallas Love Field (DAL)
In hard-hit western New York, Buffalo International Airport said in its most recent tweet that it plans to resume passenger flights at 11 a.m. ET Tuesday. The temperature at the airport was 16°F (-9°C) around 1 p.m. ET with light snow falling on top of the huge amounts the area has already seen.
Bad road conditions
Road travel remained treacherous in parts of the United States because of extreme wintry conditions.
In New York state’s western Erie County, emergency restrictions on driving were lifted in some communities but remained in place in Buffalo, County Executive Mark Poloncarz said on Monday.
“The City of Buffalo is impassable in most areas, while mains may have a lane open for emergency traffic or two, most secondaries as well as side streets have not been touched yet,” Poloncarz said.
He adding that the cleared main roads are primarily for the use of life-saving measures to open up areas around hospitals and nursing homes.
A rough past week
A winter storm that swept across the United States was ill-timed for travelers who had started pushing Christmas week flying numbers back toward pre-pandemic levels.
On Christmas Day, there were 3,178 flights canceled and 6,870 flight delayed, according to FlightAware.
On Christmas Eve, there were a total of 3,487 flights canceled, according to FlightAware.
Friday was the worst day of this streak with 5,934 cancellations, while Thursday saw almost 2,700 cancellations.
This megablast of winter weather across the eastern two-thirds of the nation is forecast to slowly moderate this week.
The-CNN-Wire
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