San Francisco (Obama.net)- When Christmas Day came and went with thousands of people seeing their flights cancelled because of a blizzard in the Northeast United States, few expected that they would still be waiting on their flights on Tuesday. At first the cancellations cost thousands of Americans their precious time with their families during the holiday season, but now many Americans are unable to come home and return to their normal lives and are missing time at work.
In the last four days, approximately 9,726 flights have been cancelled because of the heavy snow in the region. Among the airlines affected are Southwest, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, United, U.S. Airlines, and Continental.
Tuesday saw a total of 1,335 trips cancelled as the weather is slowly settling down.
Because of the confusion and rush to get things reorganized after seeing so many flights cancelled, “it’ll be two to three days before the airlines are at a regular schedule” and things begin to normalize once again according to Thomas Bosco. Bosco is the general manager at LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
Tuesday night, LaGuardia Airport was nowhere near its average of 70 departures every hour. However, John F. Kennedy Airport and Newark Liberty International airport were beginning to stabilize and start running like they normally do.
Among the airlines still struggling on Tuesday was Delta Air Lines. Of all the flights cancelled on Tuesday, three hundred of those belonged to Delta Air Lines. The airline released a statement saying that by the middle of Wednesday, they expect to be back at full service at both John F. Kennedy Airport and Newark Liberty International.
AirTran, however, was able to return to full service Tuesday and was actually setting up to increase their flights to compensate for the cancellations since Saturday.
While the airlines are beginning to return to full form, the problem of the countless people who had their flights cancelled and now face long delays still exists.
Thousands of people are stranded far from home and are being told that the next possible flight would be Thursday or Friday at the soonest. Thus, many people have no option but to either wait in the airports longer or spend even more money to find shelter in hotels as they wait to return back to their lives at home.
After ravaging the Northeast and costing countless people time, money, and patience, it appears that the blizzard is settling down and the airlines are getting back on track.
Leave a Reply