By Tim Wood
The Mighty Northeast Blizzard of 2015 may have not hit some areas as hard as expected, but that doesn’t mean travel will be any easier the next couple days.
New York City received far less snow than initially predicted, with about eight inches in Central Park up to 11 inches measured at LaGuardia Airport. The same can be said for Philadelphia and New Jersey, where the snow largely amounted to a minor storm at best.
But because of the pre-emptive actions taken to prepare for the storm, you’re still facing awful conditions for travel if you’re heading into or out of the Northeast.
There are nearly 5,000 flights cancelled today alone, about 15 percent of all air travel across the U.S., according to live flight tracking service FlightAware.
That takes the total to roughly 8,600 flights cancelled across the U.S. over the 72-hour window of the storm. The one piece of good news here: There are far fewer flights cancelled Wednesday as a result of the weather, with only 485 flights reported cancelled as of Tuesday morning.
Despite a number of social media rumors spread Monday, none of the New York-area airports fully closed, though as the night went on, flight activity throughout the entire Northeast corridor virtually shut down.
New York state officials has lifted a travel ban for New York City, with subways and commuter trains expected to be back to Sunday-level service by midday (about 60 percent service). New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo still stressed extreme caution during his Tuesday morning press conference.
“While we did not receive as much snow as predicted and the travel ban is lifted, if you can avoid traveling today, you still should,” Cuomo said. “There is a layer of ice below this snowfall and that is still creating very dangerous conditions.”
New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports and Newark Liberty are still largely shut down.
As of 9:30 a.m. EST, LaGuardia is reporting 537 cancellations (96 percent) of flights flying out of the airport and 518 cancellations (92 percent) of flights flying into the airport.
Though their snow totals may not have been as high as predicted, Philadelphia and Newark airports are still operating at very low capacity.
Newark has cancelled 93 percent of outbound flights and 89 percent of inbound flights, a total of 932 flights.
Philadelphia isn’t much better, with nearly 90 percent of outbound and 80 percent of inbound flights cancelled.
JFK appears to be the travellers’ best bet in the New York tri-state area right now, with 407 cancellations outbound (81 percent) and 362 inbound cancellations (69 percent).
Boston’s Logan Airport is still in the middle of the storm, with the blizzard hitting the area as hard as expected. As of 9:30 a.m. EST, the airport had cancelled 675 total flights, with 85 percent of outbound flights cancelled and 81 percent of inbound flights cancelled.
The fallout is creating ripple delays and cancellations at major airline hubs across the country. Chicago O’Hare has already seen about 12 percent of its total flights cancelled thus far Tuesday.
Amtrak rail service is still largely suspended in the Northeast corridor. Northeast Regional and Acela service is still suspended between New York and Boston. Most service above New York is still suspended, while trains traveling south on the Virginia corridor out of New York are slowly returning to a regular schedule throughout Tuesday.
A comprehensive list of airlines waiving change fees due to storm cancellations is available here.
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