As the extreme cold air moves to the East Coast, JetBlue has announced that it has suspended flights in and out of four major airports in the Northeast for the next 17 hours.
JetBlue began slowing service at Boston’s Logan Airport, Newark Airport in New Jersey and both major New York City airports, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia, at around 1 p.m. Monday, reports The New York Daily News. The airline said that all flights should have been closed by 5 p.m. and will stay so until 10 a.m. Tuesday morning.
“We intend to be 100-percent operational by 3 p.m. (Tuesday). This plan allows for 17 hours of rest for our equipment and crew members and time to service aircrafts,” the airline said, notes CBS Boston.
As the weather impacts the JetBlue schedule, the airline has to make adjustments to follow new Federal Aviation Administration regulations on rest for pilots, reports CNN.
“In the midst of us repairing those schedules disrupted by this week's winter storms, we're facing an additional challenge as new FAA rules went into effect for crew rest,” a JetBlue spokeswoman said. “These rules further impact our ability to operate an already disrupted schedule, causing our pilots to 'time out' even sooner. As a result, additional cancellations are likely to occur as we work to reset the operation.”
As previously reported, the ‘polar vortex’ is covering a majority of the country at the moment, bringing freezing temperatures into the deep South.
image: Wikimedia Commons
