NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The massive winter storm made for a brutal travel day Sunday, with widespread cancellations and delays at some of the nation's busiest airports.
Widespread snow, sleet and freezing rain threatened nearly 180 million people -- more than half the U.S. population -- in a path stretching from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England, the National Weather Service said Saturday night.
More than 11,400 flights were canceled on Sunday, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that as of Sunday morning, the storm is the highest experienced cancellation event since the pandemic.
Airlines had begun cancelling flights as early as Friday. By Sunday afternoon, the majority of flights were canceled at busy airports in the Northeast and elsewhere. LaGuardia Airport in New York closed Sunday afternoon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency said on its website the busy Queens airport grounded flights until 8 p.m.
In Philadelphia, 94% of flights, 326 flights, were canceled. Ninety-one percent of flights, 436 flights, were canceled at LaGuardia Airport in New York. New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport had 466 flights canceled, about 80% of flights, according to FlightAware.
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport said on its website that all airlines had canceled departing flights for the day, about 421 flights. Significant disruptions also hit major airport hubs in Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte, Philadelphia and Atlanta, home to the nation's busiest airport.
American Airlines had canceled over 1,790 flights for Sunday, about 55% of its scheduled flights for the day, according to FlightAware. Delta Air Lines reported over 1,470 cancellations and Southwest Airlines reported over 1,340 cancellations for the day, while United Airlines had about 1,016. JetBlue had more than 590 canceled flights, accounting for roughly 72% of its schedule for the day.
Vikrant Vaze, a Dartmouth professor specializing in commercial aviation logistics, said recovery from the storm cancellations and delays will take days if not longer. And even for travelers who aren't in areas that were directly affected by weather, cascading delays could still affect their travel plans.
"Because there are so many different airlines involved, I think it's going to come down heavily to the individual airline's network structure, the extent of hit that each of them has had, and just the intrinsic capacity of the airlines to handle these massive disruptions," he said.
AP writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.