Cancellations soar past 5700, stretch into Wednesday — Blizzard

Underscoring how weather problems in the Northeast can ripple out to other parts of the country, even some Florida flights had already been canceled Wednesday.

JetBlue Airways, with major operations in Boston and NY, had already canceled more than 600 flights scheduled for Tuesday, FlightAware said.

“In some locations in Pennsylvania, New York state and New England, snowfall from this storm could be the biggest March snowstorm since that of the 1993 March blizzard”, said AccuWeather meteorologist Elliot Abrams.

US airlines canceled almost 6,500 Tuesday flights, according to tracking service FlightAware.com, a move aimed at avoiding costly delays and passenger inconvenience.

Republic Airlines has canceled 137 flights, which account for 17 percent of its Tuesday flights. Some 1.73 million passengers fly per day, on average, in the U.S.

Both airlines say they are hopeful that airports in the NY area will be clear by tomorrow, although this clearly remains to be seen, even though they point separately to Chicago O’Hare Airport operating normally as of now.

About half the flights to and from the Plattsburgh International Airport were canceled. Teterboro, a regional airport in New Jersey, was closed, but John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia, and Newark International were all open, although preemptive flight cancellations meant that arrivals and departures were limited.

FlightAware CEO Daniel Baker predicts “relatively normal” operations on Thursday. Federal workers were delayed three hours Tuesday morning, as officials were taking no chances with Stella.

On the ground, Amtrak, which regularly provided service alerts for passengers during the storm had not posted any scheduling notices due to weather Wednesday.