MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW / AP) – Airlines have canceled more than 6,000 flights to, from or within the U.S. for Friday and Saturday, as a blizzard began covering much of the Eastern portion of the country.
The bulk of Friday’s 2,900 cancellations are in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, according to flight tracking service FlightAware.
That’s impacted people like Nick Johnson, who was planning to fly from Oklahoma to Charlotte but was diverted to Myrtle Beach.
“Well we rented a car up in Charlotte and so we obviously can’t get up there now. So, we had to re-route that and that got a little expensive. The best place we could rent one out at now for where our hunting place is in Georgetown so no we’re probably going to have to shell out and Uber to get from Myrtle Beach to Georgetown so hopefully we can get to our intended destination.”
It’s an inconvenience that will cost him several hundreds of dollars more for his trip but one that he knows could’ve been worse.
“We definitely got lucky. We understand that there are those who are far worse off than we were. We flew in and noticed on the arrival board that pretty much almost everything is cancelled except for our flight so we got very, very lucky,” Johnson added.
Another 3,300 flights were canceled for Saturday. Those cancellations center on Philadelphia, Washington, and New York, with airlines essentially shutting down all flights into those cities.
Sabina Sarubbi is one of those people trying to fly to New York this weekend and she’s already been delayed once. She’s prepared to wait it out.
“No I guess I’ll leave Monday or Tuesday. I guess I’ll stay through the weekend and wait for the storm to passes over then try again. That’s it really. I don’t have any other plans.”
By Sunday afternoon, however, the airlines hope to be back to a full schedule to handle the typical influx of business travelers heading out to start a week on the road.
