More than 2,200 flights were cancelled for Saturday as a major winter storm was expected to begin Friday evening and pummel the eastern United States.
By 7:30 p.m., another 1,100 flights had been cut from tomorrow’s schedule.
On his part, Scott Keyes, a travel expert, stated that the airline industry is likely looking at a loss of about $23 million for this one-day weather event if that number holds.
“It’s not something that is catastrophic to the airline's revenue,” said Keyes. “Not chump change, but considering airlines tend to pay attention to billions of dollars of costs or revenues, it's not something that is going to have a huge impact on the bottom line.”
Moreover, the National Weather Service is forecasting blizzard conditions for Boston, with total snow accumulations of 11 to 15 inches with wind gusts of up to 60 mph. Further south, the New York City forecast calls for 6 to 9 inches of snow and winds gusting as high as 45 mph.
“Bitter cold air will filter in behind the Nor'easter and plunge temperatures across the eastern third of the country on Saturday. Highs will be 15-25 degrees below average in most places,” according to the alert.
“We’re watching for airports along the East Coast from as far south as Charleston to northern Maine to be possibly directly impacted by precipitation and/or wind,” said Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial airline pilot and current spokesperson for FlightAware, an app that provides real-time, historical, and predictive flight tracking data.
In the same vein, Keyes also revealed that the flights' halt is happening during a low travel period.
“That’s not only because of omicron, but also January and February are historically the least popular months to travel. And so, if an airline could pick when a major weather event happens, now is probably about the ideal time in terms of the having the most minimal impact on operations.”
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