Days of delays ahead after flights to east coast cancelled

SCOTS holidaymakers due to jet off to the US face further flight cancellations today as Irene causes disruption along the east coast.

Thousands of Britons scheduled to fly back to the UK are stuck in America and flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh to the eastern seaboard of the US were cancelled.

As more than two million people in the US were told to flee and the New York City Transit system shut down for the first time because of a natural disaster, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic could not say how long the routes to the US east coast would be out of service.

A BA spokeswoman said: “We are keeping the path of Irene under constant review. Flights to and from New York JFK and Newark will be particularly badly affected after the local authorities made a decision to completely close the airports for much of the weekend.”

Some flights to Philadelphia and Boston were also cancelled, she added.

Virgin Atlantic said it regretted having to cancel flights to and from New York and some Boston services over the weekend. A statement on its website warned those waiting for flights home from the US that they may have to wait more than three or four days.

At Glasgow Airport, the 9am Continental Airlines flight to New York’s Newark Liberty International was cancelled, along with a 10:30am US Airways flight to Philadelphia.

A spokesman for BAA Glasgow said: “There were a small number of passengers who turned up for the New York flight whom Continental’s sales and reservations team had been unable to contact.

“Those passengers who did come had made alternative arrangements to fly down to London before going on to other cities in the US not on the east coast. As for Monday, the airlines are waiting to see what happens before making any decisions about the flights.”

The 9:25am and 12:10pm Continental flights from Edinburgh to New York were also cancelled yesterday.

More than 10,000 flights in the US have been cancelled from Friday through to today, most at New York-area airports that handle about 100 million passengers a year. Aviation officials said it could take a couple of days to get operations back to normal.