Blizzard 2016: 10,000 flight cancellations and counting
Last update: 6:50 p.m. ET.
WASHINGTON -- Air service had ground to a halt across much of East Coast on Saturday as a major winter storm brought snow, ice and blizzard conditions to areas from the Carolinas to New England. And there was little hope for quick improvement, with airlines already grounding flights into Monday.
Airlines were canceling flights by the thousands and issuing weather waivers for fliers trying to avoid the storm’s effects.
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As of 6:50 p.m. ET Saturday, more than 10,700 U.S. flights had been canceled between Friday through Sunday, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. Friday saw 3,100 cancellations, most of which were made by airlines a day in advance. Ditto for Saturday, which had 4,470 cancellations as of 6:50 p.m. ET. Sunday's cancellation tally of 2,780 flights seemed likely to grow. And -- ominously for fliers stuck away from home -- nearly 350 U.S. flights have already been canceled for Monday.
Underscoring the severity of the storm, all flights had been halted Saturday at four of the nation’s busiest airports: Philadelphia, Washington Dulles, Washington Reagan National and Baltimore/Washington International. It appeared likely that flights at Dulles and National would be grounded again on Sunday.
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But major problems were widespread, affecting dozens of East Coast airports. That included the three big airports serving New York City, where most of Saturday's schedule had been canceled at Newark Liberty, JFK and LaGuardia airports. It was unclear if Sunday would be much better.
In Charlotte, one of the nation's busiest airports and the second biggest hub for American, a limited flight schedule resumed Saturday after the Friday's entire schedule was mostly grounded. It would likely be sometime Sunday before a normal schedule would resume there.
A quick restart also appeared unlikely for the storm-battered airports in Washington, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, where it could take until Tuesday before normal operations returned. At Washington Dulles, for example, 40% of Sunday's flights and 15% of Monday's schedule had already been canceled before 5 p.m. on Saturday.
The agency that runs Dulles and Reagan National airports sounded a bleak tone for the possibility of Sunday flights, saying in a statement that local conditions "make resumption of normal flight operations at the airports unlikely on Sunday."
United -- by far the biggest operator at Dulles -- added that it would not fly at all there on Sunday, saying it "expects to gradually resume service on Monday."
A number of airports struggled with cancellations Saturday. In Raleigh/Durham, few flights were operating before noon ET and it was unclear if the schedule would improve significantly before Sunday. Boston; Richmond, Va.; Indianapolis; Atlanta; Cleveland and Chicago O'Hare were among the dozens of other U.S. airports seeing significant cancellation totals Saturday as the storm snarled schedules across the nation.
Even flights in California, Texas and Florida were feeling the storm’s effect as winter-weather cancellations rippled out to airports like San Francisco (about 80 cancellations) Orlando (more than 200 cancellations) and Fort Lauderdale (about 180 cancellations). Those tallies came largely from canceled flights that been either canceled or knocked off schedule by the weather in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
In Austin, nearly two dozen Saturday flights had been preemptively canceled despite clear skies and above-freezing temperatures.
"It's a domino effect with the airline industry so there's a good chance with the ongoing weather that they're expect through the weekend that we'll see more cancellations here in Austin," Austin-Bergstrom International Airport spokesman Jason Zielinski tells KEYE-TV of Austin.
Highlighting the scope of the storm's disruption, nearly 50 flights -- or about 10% of the day's schedule -- had been grounded in the Mexico's tropical beach destination of Cancun, according to FlightAware's count. Many of those cancellations were Saturday flights on U.S. airlines like Delta, American, United, Southwest and JetBlue that had been scheduled to fly to cities like Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
All airlines with operations in the storm's path have been canceling flights and offering ticketed fliers refunds or waiving change fees that allow them to fly another day. The waiver policies vary by airline, but they generally allow customers to make one change to their itineraries — with some restrictions — at no additional cost.
Scroll down for links to individual airline policies: