Airlines cancel 2,200+ flights as nor'easter snarls travel

Airlines had canceled more than 2,000 flights Friday as a powerful nor’easter brought rain, snow and severe wind to much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Most carriers were waiving change fees for fliers there.

Nationwide, 2,260 flights had been canceled and another 760 delayed as of 10:50 a.m. ET, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.

Most of those cancellations were spread across airports in the Northeast, where wind gusts of up to 70 mph were possible. The winds were expected to have an unusually long duration, lasting into Saturday. Some preemptive cancellations were already being reported for Saturday, with nearly 50 already grounded at airports across the Northeast and New England.

For Friday, the storm was snarling flight schedules, including several of the nation’s busiest airports.

Nearly half of the entire day’s schedule had been canceled at New York LaGuardia. More than 500 flights -- 262 departures and 266 arrivals – were canceled there as of 9 a.m. ET, according to FlightAware. At Boston, about 40% of Friday's flights had been canceled and the count continued to grow.