Delays: Fliers face Thursday headaches in Northeast, California

LATEST UPDATE: Fliers beware: Storm threatens Friday flight schedules

ORIGINAL POST: Passengers faced delays at several major U.S. airports on Thursday, the first of several potentially messy days for air travelers as a big winter storm began its trek across the nation. Airlines had already begun waiving change fees as the storm gathered steam.

Thursday's problems were mostly related to strong winds in the Northeast and poor visibility in the West. But more delays and cancellations were possible Friday and Saturday because of a strong winter storm that was forecast to bring a mix of snow, ice and rain to airports stretching from the Great Plains to the Midwest and -- by Saturday – the Northeast and New England.

On Thursday, about 600 flights had been canceled nationwide and another 4,200 delayed, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.

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Wind-related delays were being reported by the Federal Aviation Administration at the New York City-area’s three big airports: New York JFK, New York LaGuardia and Newark Liberty. The delays were intermittent, but occasionally creating back-ups of several hours, according to the FAA. At Newark, FlightAware counted about 175 cancellations as of 3:15 p.m. ET and about 250 delays. Combined, those numbers accounted for about a quarter of the day’s schedule there.

In western New York state, the problem was Lake Effect snow. Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse were among airports seeing higher-than-average cancellation and delay counts as of Thursday afternoon.

To the south, mostly minor delays had been reported by the FAA at the Dulles and Reagan National airports near Washington.

Fliers also faced problems on the West Coast. In San Francisco, a combination of wind and poor visibility at San Francisco International was creating delays averaging about 3 hours, according to the FAA. About 85 flights had been canceled (about 6% of the day’s schedule) and another 200 delayed, as of 3:15 p.m. ET, according to FlightAware.

In Los Angeles, reduced visibility and cloudy skies were leading to delays. About 200 flights there -- or almost 10% of the days schedule -- were running late as of 12:30 p.m. ET.

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