New York travel still struggling with ‘snowpocalypse’

New York and its transport hubs will take several days to return to normality following the sixth heaviest snowfall in the city’s history, according to reports.

Airlines have resumed limited services, but around 800 flights were cancelled yesterday (Tuesday), mostly in the New York area following the blizzard dubbed as “snowpocalypse”.

The three major area airports – John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark International in New Jersey – reopened late on Monday, but the cancellation of more than 5,000 flights has led to a huge backlog and more disruption.

Weather-related delays of more than five hours for arriving flights were reported by JFK yesterday and similar delays of three hours by Newark airport.

A New York Port Authority spokeswoman said that 94 flights had been cancelled at La Guardia, 281 at JFK, and 423 at Newark.

“With all the cancellations and delays, it’ll be two to three days before the airlines are at a regular schedule,” said LaGuardia’s general manager Thomas Bosco.

Snow plows and salt spreaders struggled in Manhattan, battling through knee-high snow in many streets.

“This storm is not like any other we’ve had to deal with,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, adding that emergency vehicles were among those stuck in the snow.

“Until we can pull out the ambulances, pull out the fire trucks, pull out the buses, pull out the private cars, the plows just can’t do anything,” he said. “We still have a long way to go.”

The travel chaos has been caused by one of the biggest blizzards in years, which has affected much of the eastern seaboard of North America from the Carolinas into Canada‘s Maritime provinces.

New reports said heavy winds caused an accident at Maine‘s Sugarloaf Mountain ski resort, where several people were hospitalised.