East Coast blizzard cancels 150 flights at Charlotte airport
Saturday saw 150 flights canceled at Charlotte Douglas International Airport ahead of forecasts that called for up to 2 inches of snow Friday night.
Only 0.2 inches fell in Charlotte, as temperatures warmer than expected spared the area the full brunt of a storm, meteorologist Ashley Pratt of the National Weather Service Office in Greer, S.C., told The Charlotte Observer Saturday morning.
The storm dumped up to 7 inches of snow and left thousands without power in the N.C. mountains.
As of 4 p.m. Saturday, 150 flights had been canceled at CLT for Saturday, according to flight tracker website FlightAware. That was four more flights than had been canceled as of Friday night.
Of those flights, roughly half were flying out of Charlotte and half were flying into CLT. Many of the canceled flights were flights between CLT and New York City or Boston.
The system that was expected to hit Charlotte on Friday intensified as a nor’easter and brought snowy conditions up the East Coast to New England, The Associated Press reported. Forecasters warned of localized snowfall totals of up to 20 inches and wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph.
Twenty-two of the canceled flights were flying between CLT and Boston Logan International Airport. And more flights were canceled between NYC and Charlotte — 21 flights were canceled flying between CLT and John F Kennedy International Airport and 19 flights were canceled flying between CLT and LaGuardia Airport.
Some 85 flights were canceled at the airport on Friday, and 40 Sunday flights were canceled as of 11 a.m. Saturday, according to FlightAware.
During last weekend’s storm, nearly 400 flights were canceled and hundreds of others delayed at CLT. More than 1,200 flights at CLT were scrubbed on Jan. 16 because of icy weather.
In a Twitter post Friday, the Charlotte airport encouraged travelers to check in with their airlines for flight status information before coming to the airport.
And passengers can prepare for airport travel ahead of time with CLT’s online tools. The airport’s website and app includes tools like online booking for parking at discounted rates and a real-time look at security checkpoint wait times.
This story was originally published January 29, 2022 at 12:25 PM.