Passengers planning to fly with JetBlue on Sunday are being urged to check the status of their flight before even attempting to get to the airport, after the airline canceled more than 70% of its planned schedule as severe winter weather continues to grip the Northeast.
Data supplied by flight tracking service Flight Aware shows that JetBlue has nixed 568 flights on Sunday, and more than 40% of flights have already been proactively canceled on Monday.
In a statement, JetBlue warned stranded passengers that the disruption to its flight schedule is so massive that rebooking options will be limited until the worst of the Winter Storm Fern passes, at which point the airline plans to add additional flights to clear a growing backlog.
JetBlue’s hometown of New York City is expecting the worst of the storm to pass through on Sunday, with the National Weather Service warning of “major disruption to transportation and daily life” with near whiteout conditions during long periods of snowfall throughout the day.
Heavy snowfall is expected to stop late Sunday, but frigid conditions are expected for the rest of the week, bringing with it continuing delays to transportation.
Severe winter weather is also expected to bring serious disruption to flights across vast swathes of the United States on Sunday, with other major airlines posting massive cancellations for the remainder of the weekend.
American Airlines has cancelled 43% of its mainline schedule, although regional services have been impacted even more. The carrier’s regional subsidiaries, PSA Airlines, Piedmont, and Envoy Air, have cancelled 85%, 99%, and 31% of flights, respectively.
Snow and ice across north and central Texas is expected to end later today, bringing some relief to airline passengers, although an extreme cold warning remains in effect until early next week.
Thankfully, Delta’s hometown of Atlanta is now forecast to avoid highly disruptive winter weather, although the carrier has still been forced to cancel around 30% of its schedule, especially from its hubs in Boston and New York City.
To keep its operations moving, Delta said it had moved ‘cold-weather experts’ from airports accustomed to dealing with ice and snow to southern airports to coordinate aircraft deicing operations.
Delta is also keeping pilots and flight attendants on standby at key hubs so that it can ramp up operations as soon as the weather permits.
