Sean Rayford
Hurricane Ian led to a huge number of airline flight cancellations on Thursday as the storm impacted a large portion of Florida.
Allegiant Air (ALGT) canceled 39% of its flights, while Frontier (ULCC) saw 28% of its flights canceled and Spirit Airlines (SAVE) had 24% of its flights scratched, per data from FlightAware.com.
JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) with a 20% cancellation rate and Southwest Airlines (LUV) with a 10% cancellation rate were also impacted significantly. Delta Air Lines (DAL) and America Airlines (AAL) showed a cancellation rate of 8% for Thursday in the U.S.
Since Tuesday, more than 5K flights have been canceled in the U.S. due to the hurricane.
The Orlando airport is expected to resume commercial operations sometime on Friday, while the Tampa airport has not confirmed when it will reopen. Hurricane Ian is forecast to impact airports in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina over the next two days.
Airlines companies have not released estimates on the costs of the cancelled flights or the added expenses of moving jets and crew around the storm.