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TODAY IN THE SKY
Hurricane Sandy

Flight cancellations top 13,400 as brutal travel week ends

Ben Mutzabaugh
USA TODAY
The flight status screen flashes "Canceled" notices at the Dulles International Airport in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., on  Feb. 13, 2014.

Last update: 3:20 p.m. ET.

Airlines turned their focus to "recovery" Friday as one of the most air-travel brutal weeks in recent memory began to wind down.

With nearly 13,500 flights canceled across the nation since Monday, U.S. carriers had a large backlog of displaced passengers to clear in the coming days.

First though, airlines and their passengers had to stagger through another day of delays, cancellations and overall spotty flight schedules Friday across much of the East.

More than 1,400 flights had been canceled nationwide as of 3:20 p.m. ET, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.

That came after more than 6,500 flights were canceled on Thursday alone, a massive figure that sent delays and cancellations rippling to all corners of the nation. By mid-morning Thursday, moderate to severe schedule disruptions were being reported at most airports – big and small – from Georgia north through Maine.

"Yesterday saw 6,533 flights cancelled and another 4,605 delayed, which amounts to nearly half of the daily schedule for passenger flights in the U.S.," Mark Duell, FlightAware's VP – Operations, says in a Friday e-mail to Today in the Sky. "It was the fifth worst day for flight cancellations we've seen in the last 3 years after the Groundhog Day Blizzard (of 2011), Hurricane Irene (2011), and Superstorm Sandy (2012)."

Friday's recovery was expected to be especially challenging for the airlines. Many planes and crews remained out of place Friday morning -- a lingering result from all the cancellations, delays and diversions suffered on Thursday and throughout the week.

For those who still hope to take flight, airlines waived change fees and relaxed rebooking rules for customers ticketed to fly through stormy airports, though the precise details varied by airline.

As of 3:20 p.m. ET Friday, the weekly breakdown from FightAware.com is as follows:

  • Monday: 587
  • Tuesday: 1,369
  • Wednesday: 3,460
  • Thursday: 6,540
  • Friday: 1,511 (and counting)
  • Saturday: 32 (and counting)
  • Total: 13,499

With so many affected passengers, it could take until next week before airlines are able to clear the backlog of fliers knocked off schedule by this round of disruptions.

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