Flights to the US continue to be affected due to superstorm Sandy

By Aashima On 31 Oct, 2012 At 02:33 PM | Categorized As International, Need to Know | With 0 Comments

As megastorm Sandy wheels away from the US East Coast, it is going to be a struggle to bring back things to normal, not least of which will be the restoration of flight operations. Eleven airports, from Norfolk to Boston, had cancelled as many as 90 percent of their flights on Monday and New York’s major airports had shut down entirely. Approximately 18,000 flights have been cancelled in the US over the last few days, including flights from India.

Thousands of passengers have been left stranded due to the cancellations

On Monday and Tuesday, Jet Airways had cancelled its flights between Brussels and Newark’s Liberty International Airport (EWR), while the state carrier, Air India, had delayed indefinitely the Mumbai-Newark and Delhi-New York flights. United Airways, which flies directly from Mumbai to New York, also cancelled its flights till October 31. Other operators flying between India and the US, including Eithad Airways, Emirates, Lufthansa and British Airways via their respective hubs have also cancelled trans-Atlantic flights.

Although airlines are hopeful that operations will soon resume in most cities, aviation experts claim it will take several weeks to get things back on track. There is bound to be a huge backlog of passengers due to the cancellations. Moreover, due to the damages caused by the storm, passengers can expect additional delays and cancellations. “The Newark airport runway has been flooded. It is possible that ground equipment and navigation aids could be damaged. We anticipate it could take 10 to 15 days for operations to be fully normalised,” said Jet Airways’ chief commercial officer, Sudheer Raghavan.

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