Winter Storm Fern has unleashed one of the most disruptive travel crises the United States has seen since the pandemic era, with more than 16,000 flights canceled or delayed over the weekend and into Monday as snow, ice and brutal cold swept across much of the country.

From Texas to New England, passengers found themselves stranded in terminals, sleeping on cots in concourses, or abandoning air travel altogether as the storm paralyzed major hubs and pushed airlines and airports to their operational limits.

More News

Record-Breaking Disruptions Across the Nation’s Skies

Data from flight tracking and aviation analytics firms show that Winter Storm Fern has triggered a cascading wave of cancellations and delays that began building on Friday, January 23, intensified through Saturday and Sunday, and continued to snarl schedules into Monday, January 26. By early Monday, cumulative disruptions tied to the storm had easily passed 16,000 flights, including nearly 12,000 outright cancellations over the weekend and thousands more significant delays.

Sunday, January 25, emerged as one of the worst single days for U.S. air travel in years, with airports across the eastern half of the country operating at a fraction of normal capacity. At Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., virtually the entire departure schedule was wiped out for the day, while other key mid-Atlantic and Northeast gateways, including Baltimore and New York LaGuardia, reported cancellation rates well above 80 percent.

Aviation analysts note that the scale of Fern’s impact rivals, and in some metrics surpasses, some of the most turbulent weather episodes of the last decade. Industry data providers reported that Sunday’s cancellation totals were the highest for any single day since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, underscoring how vulnerable the tightly choreographed national air system remains when a slow-moving winter storm parks itself across multiple regions at once.

Major Hubs Brought to a Standstill

The storm’s footprint has been remarkable both for its geographic reach and its timing. Fern’s icy mix first disrupted operations in the central United States, targeting key hubs such as Denver, Chicago O’Hare and Dallas Fort Worth on Friday, before marching east toward the nation’s busiest airport, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta, and then into Charlotte, Philadelphia, Washington and New York over the weekend.

At Hartsfield–Jackson, where Delta Air Lines controls a sprawling domestic and international network, more than 1,000 flights were canceled as freezing rain and sleet coated aircraft and runways. The airport’s typically relentless flow of departures and arrivals slowed to a crawl, with long lines for rebooking and many passengers forced to wait out the storm in terminals as hotels quickly filled or raised rates.

In the mid-Atlantic, airports from Raleigh–Durham to Baltimore experienced some of the highest cancellation percentages in the country, as heavy snow, gusty winds and low visibility forced repeated ground stops and reduced runway capacity. In the Northeast, LaGuardia, JFK and Newark all reported extensive cancellations, with some carriers scrapping nearly their entire Sunday schedules at smaller regional airports in order to consolidate resources at their major hubs.

Airlines Struggle to Keep Crews and Aircraft in Position

For airlines, the challenge posed by Winter Storm Fern has gone far beyond the immediate safety-driven decision to suspend operations during periods of heavy snow or ice. The slow-moving nature of the system, combined with subfreezing temperatures that persisted across multiple days and time zones, created a complex puzzle of aircraft and crew positioning that has proven difficult to solve quickly.

On the ground, lengthy de-icing lines at busy hubs consumed precious minutes and hours, eating into pilots’ and flight attendants’ legal duty limits. Once crews “timed out,” they could no longer legally operate, even after the weather marginally improved. That dynamic forced carriers to cancel flights not only because of conditions on the runway, but also because of a shortage of rested, available crews in the right locations at the right times.

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue have all shouldered heavy disruption, each reporting hundreds to more than a thousand cancellations on the worst days of the storm. Airlines expanded travel waivers that allow customers to rebook without fees and in some cases offered broader flexibility as it became clear that the storm’s impacts would linger into the early part of the week.

Industry experts suggest that it may take several days for schedules to normalize, even as skies clear, because aircraft and crews remain scattered across the country. With many flights already operating close to capacity during peak winter travel periods, finding open seats for displaced customers has been difficult, prompting some travelers to delay trips by several days or to seek alternative modes of transportation.

Passenger Experiences: Stranded, Rerouted and Rebooked

For travelers, Fern has created a familiar yet still jarring tableau of disrupted plans. Social media over the weekend filled with images of crowded gate areas, long lines snaking past ticket counters, and families camping out on the floor or on makeshift cots as they waited for new itineraries. Many travelers reported receiving multiple rebookings as airlines tried to adjust to rapidly changing conditions, only to see newly scheduled flights canceled as the storm’s impact expanded.

Some passengers heading into or out of storm-battered cities such as Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas and New York opted to abandon their air travel plans altogether, seeking refunds and turning to rental cars, intercity buses or trains where available. However, slick roads and occasional interstate closures in several states limited the practicality and safety of overland alternatives, leaving many travelers with little choice but to remain where they were.

Families traveling with young children or older relatives have been particularly affected, with some reporting overnight stays inside terminals after nearby hotels sold out. Volunteers and airport staff in several cities distributed blankets, snacks and water while local emergency management agencies coordinated warming shelters for those stranded far from home.

Consumer advocates have reminded travelers that when airlines cancel a flight, passengers are entitled under U.S. regulations to a cash refund if they choose not to travel, even on nonrefundable tickets. Many airlines have also encouraged customers to make use of mobile apps and websites to manage rebookings and monitor their flight status, in order to avoid standing in long airport lines whenever possible.

Storm Fern’s Broader Weather and Infrastructure Fallout

The aviation turmoil is only one facet of Fern’s enormous footprint. The storm system, which formed in the days leading up to January 22 and then intensified as it moved from the Four Corners region toward the Midwest and East, has brought snow, sleet and ice to a vast swath of the country. Meteorologists estimate that some 230 million people were under some form of winter weather or cold advisory over the weekend, stretching across nearly 2,000 miles.

States from Texas and Louisiana through the Mississippi Delta and into the Ohio Valley have reported extensive power outages as ice-coated trees collapsed onto transmission lines. At one point, more than a million customers nationwide were without electricity, hampering heating in regions already grappling with subfreezing temperatures and wind chills well below zero. In some communities, local officials urged residents to seek shelter with neighbors or at public facilities as utility crews struggled to access downed lines in dangerous conditions.

Farther north, heavy snow totals in parts of Pennsylvania, New York and New England have shut schools, complicated road maintenance, and prompted governors to declare states of emergency. Major interstate corridors have been partially closed or placed under travel advisories, further complicating the movement of airline crews and ground support personnel trying to reach airports.

At the same time, the storm’s extreme reach has produced unusual contrasts. While much of the country shivers under snow and ice, parts of Florida have remained comparatively mild, though forecasters expect a sharp drop in temperatures there as Fern’s cold air mass continues to sink southward early this week.

How Fern Compares With Past Winter Travel Disasters

For aviation historians and industry veterans, Winter Storm Fern is already being discussed in the same breath as some of the most significant weather-driven disruptions of the last decade. Preliminary data suggest that the storm’s combined total of more than 16,000 flight disruptions and roughly 12,000 cancellations over the weekend alone places it on par with some of the worst single-storm events on record.

Unlike fast-moving summer thunderstorms, which can create intense but relatively brief ground stops, Fern’s slow progress and multi-day blast of subfreezing temperatures have magnified its effects. Even as one region begins to dig out, another falls under the storm’s influence, limiting the ability of airlines to reposition aircraft quickly or to borrow spare capacity from unaffected hubs.

Meteorologists and transportation planners also note that Fern comes on the heels of a series of significant winter events in recent years that have tested the resilience of U.S. infrastructure. From previous blizzards that shut down the Mid-Atlantic to ice storms that crippled the South, each event has highlighted different vulnerabilities in power grids, road networks and air travel systems. Fern’s multi-regional impact, stretching from the Rockies to New England and deep into the South, adds a new reference point for evaluating preparedness and response.

For travelers, the historical comparisons may offer little comfort in the short term. Still, the data gathered from Fern’s disruption are likely to inform future decisions by airlines, airports and regulators on issues ranging from de-icing capacity and crew scheduling buffers to how far in advance carriers should preemptively trim schedules in the face of major winter weather threats.

What Travelers Should Expect in the Coming Days

As of Monday, January 26, forecasters expect Winter Storm Fern to gradually push off the East Coast, allowing conditions to slowly improve at some of the hardest-hit airports. However, the national flight network remains significantly out of rhythm, and travelers should be prepared for continued disruptions, including last-minute schedule changes, as airlines work through their backlog of stranded passengers and out-of-position aircraft.

Experts advise travelers with flights scheduled early this week to monitor their itineraries closely, check in frequently with their airline’s app or website, and consider voluntarily rebooking onto later flights if their travel plans are flexible. In many cases, carriers are still offering fee waivers for date and time changes in markets directly affected by the storm, which can reduce the risk of being stuck mid-journey.

For those already en route, having contingency plans remains essential. That can include ensuring access to funds for unexpected hotel stays, identifying alternate airports within driving distance, and keeping critical items such as medications, chargers and a change of clothes in carry-on luggage in case checked bags are separated from passengers during a rolling wave of rebookings.

Airport officials emphasize that safety remains the paramount concern as they recover from Fern, with crews focusing first on keeping runways, taxiways and critical access roads clear of snow and ice. Only once those conditions are reliably safe can airlines begin restoring anything resembling a normal schedule across a system that, for several days, has been challenged on nearly every front.

A Stress Test for U.S. Air Travel in an Era of Extreme Weather

Winter Storm Fern’s sweeping impact on American air travel offers a stark reminder of how climate and weather volatility are reshaping the risks that airlines, airports and travelers must navigate. While winter storms are nothing new, the combination of large-scale, slow-moving systems with tightly optimized airline schedules has created conditions where a single event can rapidly ripple across the entire country.

Industry leaders and transportation officials are likely to face renewed questions in the weeks ahead about how to build more flexibility and redundancy into a network that operates with little spare capacity during peak periods. That may involve greater investment in de-icing infrastructure, more conservative scheduling in winter months, or broader use of proactive cancellations well ahead of major storms to give passengers more time to adjust their plans.

For now, though, the immediate focus remains on the millions of travelers whose journeys have been upended. As Fern slowly loosens its grip on the continent, the work of untangling the nation’s flight schedules will continue, flight by flight and airport by airport, long after the last flakes have fallen.