Once again this winter, US snowstorms have brought chaos to travel plans across large areas of the country’s east coast.
UK passengers make up a sizeable proportion of the thousands that are stranded in the US after massive snowstorms forced the grounding of all transatlantic flights scheduled for the area. Heathrow Airport has cancelled 10 inbound flights from the badly affected areas of New York and Boston, along with an outbound flight to Washington. Airlines, including Air Canada, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Delta and United have all been forced to cancel flights over the weekend.
Passengers were advised to check with their airlines to see if their flight is affected, and to allow extra time to get to their airport due to the extreme road conditions.
The worst affected area was between Massachusetts and New Jersey, where approximately a metre of snow has fallen, while a hurricane-force wind killed at least eight people when it hit the US eastern seaboard and Canada. The snowstorm, which has been named Nemo, left 345,000 homes and businesses without power.
The latest heavy snow comes only weeks after similar conditions brought chaos to the Midwest and eastern USA, and resulted in similar mass cancellations of flights and disruption to road travel.
Meanwhile, snowfall across the UK, while not of the same intensity as that being experienced across the Atlantic, has triggered warnings from airlines that passengers should allow extra time when travelling to their airport.
Easyjet has issued the warning, ‘Due to the snowfall accumulations across the UK today, easyJet would like to advise passengers to allow plenty of time for their journey to the airport. Furthermore, due to this spell of wintery weather, some disruption is possible but we assure you we will do everything we can to keep any potential delays to a minimum. Before heading to the airport, we would encourage you to check the status of your flight.’
