Airlines already canceling flights as new storm looms

Airlines waived rebooking fees and had grounded nearly 1,200 flights by Saturday evening as a new winter storm took aim at the Midwest and Northeast.

Most big airlines had issued weather waivers that allowed passengers flying to airports in the storm's path to change their flight plans without paying the standard change fees. Carriers issuing weather waivers as of late Saturday included American, Delta, JetBlue, Spirit, Southwest, United, US Airways and Virgin America. Details, dates and cites covered by the waivers varied by airline.

Also, as they did ahead of last week's storm that snarled flights in the Northeast, airlines began preemptively began cancelling flights ahead of this latest storm.

As of 11:35 p.m. ET on Saturday, airlines had grounded more than 1,200 flights through Monday, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. For Sunday, more than 1,000 flights were grounded as of late Saturday while another 260 had already been grounded for Monday.

The worst of Saturday's cancellations came in Chicago, where up to a foot of snow was forecast for the metro area. Nearly 900 of those cancellations were at Chicago's busy O'Hare airport and nearly five dozen Sunday flights had been grounded at Chicago Midway as of 11:35 p.m. ET on Saturday.

More than 30 flights had been preemptively canceled at the Cleveland, Newark Liberty and Indianapolis airports.

The storm was expected to move east by Sunday evening and into Monday.

As for Monday, most of the preemptive cancellations came at Newark Liberty, where airlines had grounded close to 200 flights as of late Saturday. About 60 flights had already been grounded at Chicago O'Hare and about two dozen at New York LaGuardia, according to FlightAware.