Bomb Cyclone Airport Chaos: Storm Stops Flights Across Northeast

NEW YORK, NY — The winter storm that barreled into the eastern United States on Thursday, packing strong winds and dropping several inches of snow, forced the cancellation of thousands of flights in the region, officials said. That could affect airports across the country with connecting flights.

John F. Kennedy International Airport was closed Thursday just before 11 a.m., the Federal Aviation Administration announced. The airport was expected to reopen at 3 p.m., the FAA said. They urged travelers who are flying into and out of JFK to check with their airline about the status of their flight.

Flights at LaGuardia Airport were also temporarily suspended just before noon on Thursday, the airport said on Twitter. “Fliers should contact their airlines for information about resumption of flights,” the airport cautioned in the tweet.

Planes were being diverted from New York City airports to both BWI near Baltimore and Dulles Airport in Virginia near Washington, D.C.

Sam Sweeney, the transportation reporter for ABC News, wrote on Twitter that BWI could not accept more diverted planes at about 1 p.m. The flights were incoming to New York airports from international cities including Moscow, Istanbul, Buenos Aires and Tokyo. Passengers were told they would be bussed to New York after landing, Sweeney reported.

Additionally, more than 700 flights at Boston’s Logan Airport were canceled because of the storm. Logan Airport is “down well over 75 percent of operations today,” MassPort Director Of Aviation Ed Freni told CBS Boston.

All flights into and out of Charleston International Airport in South Carolina were canceled because of the weather conditions, the airport announced on Twitter. Paul G. Campbell Jr., executive director and CEO of the Charleston County Aviation Association, said it was not possible to tell when the airport would reopen.

"The runways and taxiways at Charleston International Airport remained closed today due to significant snow and ice coverage," Campbell Jr. said in a statement.

The airline-tracking site FlightAware reported more than 4,000 canceled flights within, into, or out of the United States on Thursday. Delta Airlines announced Thursday that they alone have canceled about 750 flights in the eastern U.S. from South Carolina to Maine.

Photo credit: Seth Wenig/Associated Press