After wreaking havoc on air schedules Thursday, Winter Storm Avery is still causing a massive headache for travelers as airlines attempt to deal with backlogs after they were caught off guard by the severity of the storm.
As of 10:30 a.m. ET, 554 flights have been canceled in the U.S. and more than 1,900 have been delayed, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. (Not all of those are tied to Avery, but the most impacted airports are Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia, Boston Logan International, and Reagan National.
The storm contributed significantly to 2,558 cancellations on Thursday and 8,215 flight delays.
Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and JetBlue have waived their change fees for passengers traveling today in all New York airports (and some outlying ones). United is also waiving fees for travelers in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Delta, American, and JetBlue are only waiving fees on a day-to-day basis, at present. United is waiving any fees on travel to or from affected cities through November 17.
The delays and cancellations come right as the travel crunch begins for the Thanksgiving holiday. AAA says 54 million Americans will travel this Thanksgiving, the most since 2005. About 4.27 million of those will be on planes (though AAA does not factor the weekend before Thanksgiving into those predictions).
