Zi­co Co­zi­er

The avi­a­tion track­ing Web site flightaware.com re­port­ed yes­ter­day that the bliz­zard that swept over north-east Unit­ed States had forced the can­cel­la­tion or de­lay of 376 flights from and to John F Kennedy In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, New York.

The win­ter storm, which has been af­fect­ing the north-east­ern states since Thurs­day, left as much as two feet of snow in some ar­eas, prompt­ing the shut­down of ma­jor high­ways in many cities, in­clud­ing New York, whose air­port was closed be­tween 6.12 am and 8.30 am yes­ter­day be­cause of the sever­i­ty of the storm.

The As­so­ci­at­ed Press yes­ter­day re­port­ed that about 2,200 flights were can­celled na­tion­wide, ac­cord­ing flightaware.com, and most of them were in New York, Philadel­phia, Boston, Chica­go and Wash­ing­ton, DC. Gov­er­nors in New York and New Jer­sey de­clared states of emer­gency and urged res­i­dents to stay at home. Hun­dreds of schools were al­so shut down in Boston and New York, ex­tend­ing the hol­i­day break for tens of thou­sands of stu­dents.

Head of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Caribbean Air­lines, Clint Williams, yes­ter­day con­firmed the de­lays of sev­er­al of the air­line's flights.They in­clud­ed: flight 521 from JFK to Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al at 6.45 am; flight 524 from Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al to JFK at 9 am; and flight 010 from JFK to Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica. He al­so men­tioned a de­lay for flight BW0600 from Pi­ar­co to Toron­to.

Con­tact­ed by the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Williams said: "We had three flights that were sched­uled to de­part that were un­able to de­part be­cause of the clo­sure of the air­port (JFK) by the port au­thor­i­ties due to rapid­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ing weath­er con­di­tions."I can re­port that the air­port re­opened and our flights are be­ing board­ed and sched­uled to op­er­ate any mo­ment now."Williams said none of the air­line's oth­er routes were af­fect­ed by de­lays and can­cel­la­tions be­cause of ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions.

Amer­i­can Air­lines, how­ev­er, had to can­cel sev­er­al of its flights be­tween JFK and the Caribbean.Lau­ra Masvi­dal, com­mu­ni­ca­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tive for its Mex­i­co, Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca di­vi­sion, said flights to and from St Maarten, An­tigua, St Thomas and Bar­ba­dos had been can­celled un­til fur­ther no­tice. She was un­able to iden­ti­fy any de­lays or can­cel­la­tions af­fect­ing flights be­tween JFK and Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al.

She urged af­fect­ed pas­sen­gers and those ex­pect­ing fam­i­ly or friends who are trav­el­ling to check the sta­tus of flights on the air­line's Web site.Williams al­so rec­om­mend­ed that pas­sen­gers re­view their Caribbean Air­lines flight sta­tus on­line, as there could be a long wait for the de­layed air­craft when wait­ing to leave Port-of-Spain.