US Airlines Cancel Over 1,500 Flights As Winter Storm Batters Holiday Travel

Airlines in the US have had to cancel well over a thousand flights yesterday ahead of the forecasted winter storms expected to be experienced across the Northeast of the country. This is also rather untimely as this is also a busy travel period due to the winter and festive holiday season, which sees people around the country travel domestically and internationally.

The airlines have stated that they will temporarily waive any change fees or fare differences, allowing the affected passengers to make changes to their travel itinerary without additional financial penalties, but the passengers changing flights must change it to an alternate flight that departs by the end of this calendar year.

Untimely Flight Cancellations

As per CNBC reports, airlines across the US have cancelled over 1,500 flights yesterday ahead of the adverse winter storm weather forecast for the Northeast of the country. Major areas that are expected to be affected include areas such as New York, Long Island, New Jersey, and more, it is no surprise that hundreds of flights were cancelled across major airports in the region, such as New York JFK Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), and even Philadelphia International Airport (PHL).

Data from FlightAware indicates that a total of 1,693 flights were cancelled on Friday, December 2025, across the country, and a further 8,297 flights faced delays. Considering the nature of the cancellations, it is reported that the airlines have waived change fees and fare differences for the affected passengers, with a caveat that the flights can be changed as long as the new flight departs by the end of the calendar year.

Considering this is during the peak end-of-year travel period, the number of options available to rebook will be limited anyway. The published data from the Airlines for America lobbying group indicate that the carriers in the US are expected to carry a record 52.6 million passengers between December 19 and January 5.

Deep Dive: Looking Into The Numbers

By considering the cancellation and delay data published by FlightAware, it can be seen that the three most affected airports are New York JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia Airport (LGA), as these three airports faced the largest number of cancellations and delays. Considering the flights originating from these airports and the flights that were scheduled to land at these three airports, the numbers indicate JFK recorded 387 cancelled flights and 289 delayed flights, EWR saw 267 cancelled flights and 247 delayed services, and LGA saw 232 cancellations and 222 flight delays.

When looking into specific airline operations, the top five carriers that experienced cancellations and delays are as follows:

One key airline missing in the above table is United Airlines, which, according to the data, comes in at number six, with 97 cancellations (3%) and 856 delays (28%).

However, it is worth noting that Republic Airways in the table is a regional carrier that operates flights on behalf of the other major US carriers, such as United, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines. Therefore, cancellations and delays faced by Republic and other regional operators, such as Endeavor Air, will all contribute to the cancellations and delays faced by the big three carriers.

A Disruptive Couple Of Months

The US aviation market has faced considerable challenges and disruptions across the months of November and December, resulting in thousands and thousands of flights being cancelled during various periods of the two months. While the storm has resulted in over 1,600 flights being cancelled yesterday, during the first weeks of November, considerable cancellations occurred in the US, primarily affecting the nation’s domestic air travel due to the government shutdown impacting staffing levels at Air Traffic Control facilities and TSA facilities at airports.

The already existing staffing issue, further aggravated by the shutdown, which was then followed by the FAA enforcing a 10% cancellation on flights across 40 major US airports, resulted in a consistently high number of flight cancellations and delays for weeks on end. Luckily, the shutdown ended before the US market experienced its busiest Thanksgiving holiday period of the past 15 years, recording over 30 million passengers during the last 10 days of November.

Hopefully, the impact of the storm this weekend is not too harsh and prolonged disruption is not experienced, so all passengers can travel to their intended destination for this year-end festive holiday season.