Airlines cancel 2,000 flights as snow hits Thanksgiving travel

This year’s Thanksgiving air travel has finally hit a hitch.

Airlines canceled nearly 2,200 flights on Saturday and Sunday, rolling out weather waivers as a potent storm swept through the upper Midwest and Great Lakes. The system was forecast to bring up to a foot of snow or more to much of the region, with airlines now preemptively canceling flights into Sunday.

The disturbance — which comes after a calm run-up to Thanksgiving — has disrupted the plans of thousands of travelers during the second half of what’s expected to be one of the busiest Thanksgivings ever for air travel.

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Airlines had canceled 1,898 flights on Saturday and delayed another 7,596 as of 11:10 p.m. EST, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. For Sunday, another 300 flights had already been canceled.

Hundreds of those were preemptively canceled by Friday evening in anticipation of the storm, with about 80 flights already grounded for Sunday.

For Saturday, the hardest-hit major airports were those serving Chicago and Milwaukee, though significant cancellations were being reported at a number of airports across Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri.

At Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), more than 1,100 combined departures and arrivals had been canceled — more than 40% of Saturday’s entire schedule. About 240 — close to 35% of the day’s schedule — were canceled across town at Chicago Midway Airport (MDW). To the north, about a third of Saturday’s flights had been canceled at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE).

At Eastern Iowa Airport (CID) near Cedar Rapids, more than half the day’s schedule had been canceled. In Madison, Wisconsin, about a quarter of flights had been scrapped at Dane County Regional Airport (MSN). It was a similar story at Des Moines International Airport (DSM) in Iowa, which also saw cancellations top 30%.

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Among other airports seeing significant winter-weather disruptions on Saturday were:

• St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL)
• Omaha’s Eppley Airfield (OMA) in Nebraska
• Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB)
• Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City, Michigan (TVC)
• Quad Cities International Airport near Davenport, Iowa (MLI)
• South Bend International Airport in South Bend, Indiana (SBN)
• Fort Wayne International Airport in Indiana (FWA)
• General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport in Illinois (PIA)
• Waterloo Regional Airport in Iowa (ALO)

By Sunday, the system was expected to move to the east and away from most major air hubs — though road travel could be a problem across parts of Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

Additionally, residual flight cancellations could linger across the Midwest and Great Lakes as carriers reset their operations there.

Most major airlines had rolled out flexible rebooking policies for passengers affected by the storm and scheduled to fly through the region.

STORM WAIVERS: American | Delta | Frontier | Southwest | Sun Country | United

Travelers scheduled to fly on Saturday or Sunday should check ahead on the status of their flights before heading to the airport.

Check back for updates.

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