(The Hill) — Widespread post-Thanksgiving flight delays due to winter weather could continue through the beginning of the week, according to officials.
There were 11,273 flight delays within, into or out of the United States on Sunday, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware, with 831 cancellations within, into or out of the country.
The recent delays also follow air travel chaos caused by the recent record-breaking government shutdown, which lasted more than a month.
In a Sunday post on the social platform X, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said that “a winter storm will approach the Mid Atlantic and Northeast beginning Monday evening with a threat of snow and ice across the interior portions of both regions.”
“Any snowfall and ice will present hazardous travel concerns, especially across the interior Northeast U.S.,” the post continued.
Chicago O’Hare International Airport, which had been prepping for the busiest Thanksgiving travel week in its history, experienced “severe winter weather” that it said was “impacting flights” at the airport Saturday.
“Cancellations and delays have begun as a winter storm moves through the area and is expected to continue for much of Saturday,” the airport, which experienced 529 flight delays for departures and 533 delays for arrivals that day, per FlightAware.
An NWS forecast office in Chicago had said early Saturday on X that “a winter storm” was “still expected to bring widespread accumulating snow and travel impacts to the region today and tonight!”