Us airlines slowly resume service following blizzard
Photo: @Reagan_Airport
US airlines are slowly beginning to resume service following a historic blizzard this weekend.
Storm Jonas swept across the northeastern part of the USA, causing more than two dozen weather-related deaths and wreaking havoc with travel systems. Seven major airports serving Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York were "all but shutdown", reports Business Insider, while multiple states declared states of emergency.
22.2 inches of snow were recorded in Washington, with 26.8 inches falling in New York City, 0.1 inches short of the record set in 2006. The Guardian reports that even a small team of weather observers attempting to record snowfall at Reagan airport lost their snow-measuring device because there was simply too much of the white stuff.
In Washington and New York, the usually busy roads were brought to a standstill. In the skies above, normally one of the busiest airspaces in the world, aircraft were nowhere to be seen, as cancellations stacked up instead of Planes waiting to land.
Photo: FlightRadar 24 (via Business Insider)
More than 12,000 flights were cancelled nationwide across the last three days, with tracking site FlightAware recording 5,237 cancellations on Saturday and 4,007 cancellations on Sunday.
Today, though, normal service has not yet resumed, with at least 1,710 cancellations recorded, despite many major airliness expressing intent to restart services.
Two of Washington's main airports, Dulles and Reagan (pictured above), said they would keep runways closed all day Sunday, as they strove to clear the snow. Before the end of Sunday, National Airport had already grounded 15 per cent of today's schedule as a preemptive measure, with 100 Tuesday flights also grounded. Half of Dulles' Monday schedule was scrapped in advance too.
Those airlines with cancellations are offering passengers refunds or waiving fees involved with changing flights to another day.
If you think you will be affected by the ongoing disruption, USA Today has a list of each individual airline's policy.