A number of major airlines are encouraging customers to reschedule their travel plans for the holiday weekend as two major storm systems wreak havoc in the midwest and southeast before charging towards a possible assault on the Mid-Atlantic and New England.
A JetBlue Embraer E190 taxis over a snow-covered tarmac. (Photo by DRust)
The storms are expected to converge off the coast of the Carolinas and intensify into a single storm which could deliver disruptive amounts of snow from along the east coast from Washington DC to New York and potential blizzard conditions in the New England states. Airports as far south as Atlanta could receive some accumulation.
Delta broadcast a media bulletin as early as Thursday afternoon warning travelers of the impending storm, offering passengers ticketed to or from several airports the option to rebook onto earlier or later flights without change fees. On Friday Delta announced that it had preemptively canceled over 500 flights on Saturday, Christmas Day.
United, Continental, JetBlue, US Airways, AirTran and American followed suit on Friday, issuing its own warnings and contingency offers to rebook passengers and minimize backlogs at affected airports.
Travelers should consult their airline website for detailed info about change fee policies and affected airports.
