More than 1,100 flights canceled Sunday as major winter storm disrupts travel

05.01.2025 - 19:25 / thepointsguy.com

The season's most potent winter storm to date is wreaking havoc on air travel across a large swath of the country.

Snow, ice and bitter cold air are bearing down on much of the Midwest, fueling thousands of flight disruptions that could get worse as the system heads toward the East Coast.

As of 1 p.m EST Sunday, airlines had canceled more than 1,100 flights across the U.S., according to data from FlightAware. Another 3,300 have been delayed.

So far, Missouri's Kansas City International Airport (MCI) has seen the worst of the flight troubles, with close to 90% of its scheduled departures canceled Sunday amid blizzardlike conditions.

Those widespread cancellations come a day after the airport, at one point, had to close down its runways amid rapid ice accumulation — something that briefly threatened the Kansas City Chiefs' planned departure for a game in Denver Sunday.

For days, forecasters had warned of significant travel disruptions as the winter storm took shape last week, with the National Weather Service warning of potentially significant snowfall totals from the Midwest to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

"The accumulating snow, which could approach or exceed a half of a foot is expected to bring travel to a standstill in places like Kansas City, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Cincinnati," AccuWeather Meteorologist Brandon Buckingham said Friday, while also noting that conditions across the mid-Atlantic states would pose "a major risk to travel between Sunday night and Monday evening."

As early as Friday, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) said its airport snow team would be monitoring conditions with plans to deploy snow removal equipment as needed.

Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) similarly warned of the potentially treacherous conditions headed into Monday morning.

Most major U.S. airlines have issued travel alerts, which allow passengers extra flexibility to make itinerary changes amid the bad weather. That includes waiving change fees even for travelers flying on even their most restrictive fare types.

Southwest Airlines was one of the hardest-hit airlines on Sunday, leading all U.S. airlines with more than 300 cancellations — about 7% of its schedule. The Dallas-based carrier has a sizable presence in both hard-hit Kansas City and St. Louis — not to mention in the D.C. area, which is expected to feel the brunt of the storm in the coming hours.

American Airlines has scrapped more than 100 flights so far Sunday, hurt both by the winter storm and by a mid-day ground stop fueled by high winds at its Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) home base, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Here's what to know if you'll be traveling over the next couple of