The Riverside Press-Enterprise
U.S. flight cancellations top 2,800 as Christmas Day draws to a close
With much of the United States still reeling from a nearly weeklong winter storm, flight cancellations and delays and other transportation challenges continued to pile up on Christmas Day.
More than 2,800 flights within, into or out of the United States were already canceled by 10 p.m. ET Sunday, according to flight tracking website Flightaware. And delays of flights still able to takeoff numbered roughly 6,700. Christmas Day is traditionally a light day for passenger flights.
Demonstrating the sheer size and widespread effects of the storm, it was an airport in the Deep South and another out West that were most affected Christmas Day. Hartsfield-jackson Atlanta International — the world’s busiest airport for passengers — saw the second most cancellation and delays as of 10 p.m. Sunday.
No. 1 was more than 1,000 miles away out in the Rocky Mountains with Denver International. And even farther out West, Harry Reid International in Las Vegas had the thirdmost cancellations.
Denver International was keeping a sense of humor during the stressful event, posting a tweet of what appeared to be an airport worker playing “Jingle Bells” on a fiddle.
The storm’s effects in parts of the West are abating, though. The temperature at 8 p.m. MT at Denver International was still above freezing at 38°F.
In hard-hit western New York, things were still too rough for humor.
Buffalo Niagara International Airport tweeted that it would remain closed entirely until 11 am. Tuesday — extending out a closing originally set to end at 11 a.m. today.
The temperature at BUF at 10 p.m. ET was 20°F with wind speeds of 24 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
The massive storm’s arrival was ill-timed for travelers who had started pushing Christmas week flying numbers back toward pre-pandemic levels.
On Christmas Eve, there were a total of 3,487 flights canceled, according to Flightaware.
Friday was the worst day 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 into the last week of the year. As of 5:30 p.m. ET, there were still more than 260 preemptive cancellations for today.