Fierce weather forces more flight cancellations, delays

Airlines continued to cancel and delay thousands of flights Monday as freezing temperatures spread across the country in the aftermath of last week's winter storm.

JetBlue Airways virtually ceased operations to and from Boston, Newark and New York City to deal with the backlog caused by the storm, which took place during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

Starting at 1 p.m. Monday, the airline reduced operations at New York's JFK and LaGuardia, Newark's Liberty International and Boston's Logan airports. At 5 p.m., nearly all flights will cease at those airports, the airline said in a statement.

Flights will begin gradually ramping up at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The airline said it expected to be fully operational by 3 p.m. Tuesday.

"This is to ensure recovery of our operations as efficiently as possible and to be fully operable by tomorrow," the airline said in a statement.

A total of 3,621 flights had been canceled in the U.S. as of 3 p.m., according to FlightAware.com, which tracks flights. Another 4,392 have been delayed so far. Those numbers could increase throughout the day because delays and cancellations typically have a domino effect across the country.

There were 3,497 cancellations and 10,046 delayed flights in the U.S. on Sunday.

Chicago O'Hare airport has been the hardest hit after being pummeled by a foot of snow last week. There were 803 canceled flights there as well as 63 delays as of 1:30 p.m., according to FlightAware.com.

New York's JFK, which was shut down for a couple of hours yesterday morning when a plane skid into a snow bank, had 99 cancellations and 92 delays so far today.

Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, said all four runways were back in service as of Sunday.

Delays and cancellations rippled across the country, even down to Florida, where 43 flights were canceled and 89 delayed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The airport, airlines and conventions bureau were trying to find discounted hotel rooms for stranded travelers.

"Conditions may improve or worsen depending on weather conditions in the Midwest and Northeast," said airport spokesman Gregory Meyer.

Coupled with the weather problems, airlines were also operating under new federal rules that require pilots to spend more time sleeping between shifts and to fly fewer consecutive hours. The rules, which went into effect Saturday, were adopted after a 2009 Colgan Air crash near Buffalo that was blamed partly on pilot fatigue.

Airlines say the new rules require pilots to time out and replacement pilots to step in at sometimes inopportune times like a bad weather day.

"These rules further impact our ability to operate an already disrupted schedule, causing our pilots to 'time out' even sooner," said Tamara Young, a spokeswoman for JetBlue, "As a result, additional cancellations are likely to occur as we work to reset the operation."

Morgan Durrant, a spokesman for Delta Air Lines, said the new rules had not had a significant impact on operations yet.

"By and large what we're seeing over the last few days and today is very similar to what we would have seen under the old rules," he said.

Airlines relax rules on change fees

Many airlines were waiving change fees while warning that it could take days for flights to get back to normal.

Alan Bender, professor of aeronautics at Embry-Riddle University, said airlines are generally much more willing to cancel flights ahead of time because of federal rules that impose fines on them if they keep passengers on planes on tarmacs for too long.

"Airlines have been very, very proactive in cancelling flights in poor weather, or forecasted poor weather, since institution of the tarmac rule a few years ago," he says.

American Airlines canceled more than 500 flights as of 10 a.m. today "with more to come," said spokesman Matt Miller.

"While there is little to no precipitation, the extremely cold temperatures in the Midwest and Northeast are having a big impact on our operations today," he said.

He said that fuel and glycol supplies were frozen at Chicago's O'Hare and other airports in the Midwest and Northeast.

"Additionally, our employees are only able to be out on the ramp for a few minutes at a time because wind chills are as low as 45 below zero at some airports," he said. "We will have minimal operations today in Chicago and in other cities in the Midwest and Northeast."

American is offering customers scheduled to fly to, from and through 26 airports in the Midwest and Northeast the opportunity to re-book their flights without penalty.

United Airlines spokeswoman Mary Ryan said about 200 mainline and 1,300 United Express flights were canceled so far this morning, but that those numbers would change throughout the day. The airline is based in Chicago.

"Thankfully, at least here in Chicago the snow has stopped falling," she said. "But we are experiencing record low temperatures. That still has an impact on our operations."

She said the airline canceled flights proactively to prevent customers from traveling to the airport in freezing temperatures and give them enough time to reschedule flights online.

"I think we're still going to be looking at some reductions in the schedule through tomorrow," she said.

United is offering waivers of fees and refunds to customers traveling to, from and through 22 airports if they choose not to fly through Wednesday, even if they have nonrefundable tickets.

Delta canceled about 400 flights. Passengers in select states could get fee waivers.

Durrant said he expects flights to start normalizing on Tuesday.

Southwest Airlines canceled almost 200 flights, said Dan Landson, an airline spokesman.

"One of our big concerns is the safety of our employees and crews. They can only be outside so long," he said. "And of course, we're still trying to get back on track from last week."

Southwest was also waiving change fees at a number of airports.

US Airways canceled about 150 flights of both mainline and Express operations.

Inbound trans-Atlantic flights from Europe to Philadelphia, a US Airways hub, were running 20 to 45 mins late due to headwinds. Flights from Amsterdam to Philadelphia were necessitating a stop in Canada for fuel due to headwinds and were running two hours late.

Change fees were being waived at affected cities.

Allegiant Air moved 18 flights scheduled for today to tomorrow. Allegiant and Frontier Airlines were also offering fee waivers.

At least one airline, Virgin America, reported that its operations were already back to normal.