Late Winter Storm Keeps Many Flights On Ground
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 17, 2007; Page D01
Airline passengers hoping to put the rough winter travel season behind them were dealt another blow yesterday when a snowstorm forced carriers to cancel hundreds of flights up and down the East Coast.
The storm, which delivered a combination of snow, ice and rain, hammered airports in the New York area, where airlines canceled many flights.
The weather also forced carriers to delay or cancel scores of flights to and from the Washington region's three major airports.
JetBlue Airlines, which is still recovering from the fallout of massive cancellations last month, scrubbed 400 flights, many at its hub at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The airline canceled seven flights out of Dulles International Airport, as well as all of the flights from JFK to Dulles, an airline spokeswoman said.
Other airlines, looking at forecasts that showed the storm continuing into the afternoon, followed suit: US Airways, Delta Air Lines, and American and Continental airlines all dropped hundreds of flights from their schedules.
US Airways and its regional carriers canceled more than 1,000 flights yesterday. The company was forced to halt most of its shuttle operations between Washington's Reagan National Airport and New York's LaGuardia Airport.
Delta and its regional carriers canceled 600 flights, most at New York area airports. It canceled a few flights at Dulles and at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport but scrubbed more than 50 flights at Reagan National, a spokeswoman said.
Airline representatives said they expected to return to normal operations late today or Sunday. They urged customers to call ahead to ensure their flights were on time.
Gina Laughlin, a Delta spokeswoman, said the carrier had been monitoring the weather and began working to cancel yesterday's flights a day in advance to avoid systemwide disruptions.
"The whole point of making this decision before a storm hits is that it allows you to re-position your airplanes and keep them out of New York so they aren't stuck there," Laughlin said.
A JetBlue spokeswoman, Jenny Dervin, said the airline canceled so many flights because the "weather forecast does not look promising."
The airline has canceled 28 flights for today but expects operations to be back to normal by noon "as long as Mother Nature doesn't throw a curve ball," Dervin said.
JetBlue ran into trouble on Valentine's Day when it stranded passengers on planes for hours on the JFK tarmac. The airline didn't cancel flights that day and struggled to recover over the next weekend. The problems have cost the airline about $30 million.
