Another winter storm is wreaking havoc on air travel in southern Ontario and in Montreal, with more than 420 flights cancelled today at four major airports. There are also a number of cancellations in Boston and Washington, D.C.
After being walloped by snow storms over the last couple days, another 25 centimeters of snow or more was expected overnight and on into Sunday in parts of the Greater Toronto/Golden Horsehoe region tonight and tomorrow. The Weather Network says the storm is expected to move east and crush Montreal with 25 to 40 centimeters of white stuff on Sunday and Monday.
Atlantic Canada could face very difficult conditions in the next few days, as well. Air Canada has travel/winter advisories out for a dozen or so airports for today and tomorrow, including Quebec City, Halifax, Moncton, and St. John’s, and for many on Tuesday. WestJet has posted advisories for many of the same airports, as well Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and London, Ontario.
Air Canada’s site says it has revised its ticketing policy to make it easier for customers travelling on an affected flight to make changes to their booking without penalty, space permitting.
“If your flight is affected, you can retrieve your booking to change your flight free of charge. If you purchased your ticket with Air Canada Vacations, please contact them directly at 1-800-296-3408.
“We also recommend that you check your Flight Status or call Air Canada’s automated flight information system at 1-888-422-7533 before heading to the airport. We’ve also prepared more information on our re-booking policies for anticipated flight delays and cancellations.”
WestJet said it’s offering a zero dollar one-time fee waiver for changes or cancellations at airports impacted by the winter weather.
“If you change your destination, the difference in fare applies. Any residual funds are refunded,” the airline said.
FlightAware showed that, as of 10 a.m. Eastern Time today (Sunday, Feb. 16), 226 flights had been cancelled at Toronto Pearson, which is roughly 21% of all incoming and outgoing flights. It was worse in terms of percentages at the Toronto Island/City Airport, which was showing 37 cancellations or 36%.
FlightAware said there were 114 cancelled flights at Montreal Trudeau as of 10 a.m. on Sunday (roughly 22%), with another 47 for Ottawa (25%).
Air Canada Jazz is being hardest hit, with 167 cancellations. Mainline Air Canada had 70 and Air Canada Rouge had seven. FlightAware said 52 WestJet flights have been cancelled for the day, while Porter has seen 42 cancelled inbound and outbound flights.
That’s 424 cancellations all told for Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. If there are an average 100 people on a plane, that’s more than 42,000 customers facing a scramble for new flights.
A snowy airport. Sergey Svechnikov/Unsplash Photo
As of 10 a.m. ET on Sunday, Boston Logan Airport had 164 cancelled flights (about 15%), while Reagan National in Washington D.C. had 88 cancellations (roughly 10%), according to FlightAware stats.
Many flights in Canada and the U.S. also are, of course, facing significant delays.
In a note posted on their Twitter/X account at 9 a.m. today, Toronto Pearson officials said the airport has seen 12.2 cm’s since the snow started on Saturday.
“The latest forecast shows we could see an additional 15 cm today. In total, we’ve had 53.6 cm of snow this past week. To put that into perspective, that’s more than the 47.6 cm we got in January, December, and November, combined.
“Our teams are working hard to clear the runways by plowing, sweeping, and blowing the snow away,” officials said.
