EAST ELMHURST, Queens (WABC) — LaGuardia Airport has been hit particularly hard after the winter storm as American Airlines announced this weekend’s storm was the most disruptive storm in the airline’s 100-year history.
American has canceled more than 10,000 flights and expects impacts to be felt for two more days.
The airline cancelled 1,400 flights, roughly 37%, on Tuesday alone.
For context, Delta has cancelled 102 or 3%, and United has cancelled 28 or 1% of its total flights.
American has already cancelled 304 or 8% of its flights for Wednesday.
American’s CEO partially blamed the current cold weather in Dallas, but Southwest also has a hub in Dallas and they’ve only cancelled 10 flights on Tuesday.
Dallas is American Airlines’ largest hub and the city is still trying to get out from under the ice storm they experienced over the weekend.
The airline says this has already cost them $150-200 million, and their stock is down 7%.
American Airlines is desperate for pilots and flight attendants to pick up extra shifts. The airline is now offering its flight attendants double pay if they are willing to work extra flights on Wednesday. Pilots are being offered an additional five hours pay.
At LaGuardia on Tuesday, 21% of AA flights — many of which fly through Dallas — were cancelled.
Eyewitness News spoke to one family who has experienced two days of canceled flights and won’t be able to get out of New York until Wednesday morning at the earliest.
Other travelers said the past few days have cost them upwards of $1,000 — money they most likely won’t be getting back.
“From what I’m told, weather-related, they are not reimbursing,” said traveler Albert Leigh, whose flight has been canceled four times.
Some savvy travelers got ahead of the weather and anticipated the inevitable.
“I got a notification on Friday that I could change my flight to Monday without a fee, so I actually changed it twice,” said Kristin Parker, a traveler from Denver.
LaGuardia has 250 canceled flights on Tuesday, JFK had 155 and Newark reported 78.
The U.S. had more than 12,000 flight delays or cancellations nationwide Monday, according to flight tracker flightaware.com. On Sunday, 45% of U.S. flights got cancelled, making it the highest day for cancellations since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
New York City saw its snowiest day in years, with neighborhoods recording 8 to 15 inches of snow.
(The Associated Press and ABC News contributed to this report.)
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