Operations at Pittsburgh International Airport are a mixed bag today as Sandy continues to affect areas from the East Coast to the Midwest. Numerous flights were canceled this morning, mostly due to a lack of planes.
“When there’s upheaval in the airline system, when a whole day’s worth of flights get canceled out of heavily-traveled airports such as Philadelphia, the New York airports, Washington DC, it does leave an imbalance in the system and aircraft aren’t where they should be when they need to be,” said Airport Spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny.
Aside from steady rain, Pittsburgh hasn’t seen the severe weather Sandy brought to other areas, so flights to other areas of the country from the Steel City are still taking off as scheduled.
“It usually takes a cycle of a day or so to right the ship, and that’s where we’re at right now, so I think the storm’s taken a big toll out of the East Coast, and now people are trying to ramp up, but safety first. The airlines have to think about passenger safety first,” said Jenny.
Still, she said it’s too early to tell exactly how long it will take to get airline schedules back to normal. For now, passengers are urged to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport. General information on flight delays can be found on the airport's website.
