Arctic Freeze Disrupts North American Air Travel

Glacial temperature
gripping large parts of the United States and Canada disrupted thousands of flights, creating more challenges for airlines seeking to recover from recent snow and ice storms.
Reuters reported  that Jet Blue Airways resumed departures from New York and Boston airports after halting flights in those cities on Monday evening to protect crews and aircraft as it sought to recover from recent snow and low temperatures.
A frigid blast of arctic air that broke decades old record in the middle United States moved eastward on Tuesday. The cold weather froze fuel equipment for plane, forcing airlines to cancel flights.
Delta Air Line said ice and snow at its Detroit hub that disabled fuel gear led it to suspend regional flights there on Tuesday. Air Canada said flights to, from or connecting through 15 airports in Canada and the US Northeast could be delayed or cancelled.
Overall, more than 2,900 flights had been cancelled on Tuesday, according to flight tracker Flight Aware, that compared with nearly 4,600 cancellations on Monday.
Among major carriers, South West had cancelled 309 flights on Tuesday and JetBlue had 216 cancellations, according to Flight Aware. United had 17 halted flights and American Airlines and its American Eagle unit had 500 cancellations combined.
Airports taking the hardest hit were Chicago O’Hare, where 383 flights or about 31 per cent of flights were cancelled, and Toronto Pearson, where 119 flights or 19 per cent of its total were halted.
At Chicago O’Hare American put its fueling pumper and tanker trucks in a hangan to keep them from freezing, spokeswoman Mary Francis Fagan said in an e-mail.
United was operating a reduced scheduled at O’Hare, while Toronto’s Pearson Airport sid the gusty winds and extreme cold weather which Environment Canada said was minus 37 degrees Celsius (minus 35 degree Fahrenheit ) with wind chill, was causing equipment to freeze and posting a safety concern for workers.