More than 2,200 flights within, in and out of the United States had been canceled as of 5:30 p.m. ET Sunday, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. Flights that were still able to depart were delayed nearly 5,800 times. Christmas is traditionally a slow time for passenger flights.
The worst hit on Christmas Day was an airport in the Deep South, a testament to the size and impact of the storm. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is the busiest passenger airport in the world with the highest number of cancellations and delays.
Do not. 2 over 1,000 miles away in the Rockies with Denver International.
However, the storm’s impact on parts of the west is fading. The temperature at Denver International Airport was well above freezing at 46°F (8°C) at 3:30pm.
Things are still too crude for humor in hardest-hit Western New York.
According to the National Weather Service, the temperature in BUF at 3 p.m. ET was 20°F (-7°C), with winds of 24 mph.
rough week of flying
A pair of travelers slept while others lined up through a security checkpoint at Denver International Airport on Friday.
David Zarubowski/AP
The big storm has come at an inopportune time for travelers who have already begun to push Christmas week flying numbers back to pre-pandemic levels.
On Christmas Eve, a total of 3,487 flights were canceled, according to FlightAware. Friday was the worst day, with 5,934 cancellations, compared with nearly 2,700 on Thursday.
The winter weather blast in the eastern two-thirds of the country is expected to ease slowly in the final week of the year. As of 5:30 p.m. ET, there were still more than 260 early cancellations on Monday.
Bus and Train Services
CNN’s Danielle Wiener-Bronner and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.