Another East Coast storm grounds planes, although cancellations likely fewer than prior storm

Airlines hunker down in another snowstorm

Airlines canceled hundreds of Thursday flights at East Coast airports as another big snowstorm rolled through.

Continental Airlines and its regional partners scrubbed about 270 flights at its Newark hub — more than half its schedule there.

Delta canceled about 400 mainline and regional flights in and out of the Northeast, including the New York area and Philadelphia.

“This is nothing new for us. Thinning out the operation is something we do to make sure we can have an efficient startup the next morning,” spokeswoman Susan Elliott said.

US Airways Group Inc. canceled 356 flights because of bad weather in the New York area, Philadelphia, and Washington.

American Airlines dropped more than one-third of its flights in the New York area and Philadelphia.

A spokesman for the New York airports says there are no plans to close them.

“We have plows, we have deicing, the entire gamut is covered,” spokesman John Kelly said. “We have all our operations people out there, they have been trained to do this, they know what they’re doing.”

Southwest Airlines grounded most of its flights in and out of Philadelphia, and said it expects delays, diversions and cancellations in airports from Baltimore to Buffalo, N.Y.

The storm was expected to snarl flights into Friday.

Still, airlines appeared unlikely to top the 13,000 cancellations tallied by the Air Transport Association around two huge East Coast snowstorms between Feb. 5 and Feb. 10. The ATA said 921 flights were canceled Thursday at the three New York-area airports and Philadelphia.

The airlines said on Thursday they would waive change fees for travelers who want to shift their ticket to a different day to avoid the weather.

The Transportation Department has new rules starting in April that will penalize airlines who strand passengers on the tarmac for more than three hours. Airlines had argued that the new rule would increase cancellations to avoid situations where a plane is likely to face a lengthy take-off delay.

Lance Sherry, who tracks airline operations for the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research at George Mason University, said it’s true that airlines are canceling more flights in advance of a storm — but he said the shift came before the government’s new rules.

He said Delta began canceling more aggressively in 2007 in advance of storms, and other airlines began doing the same thing. It gives the airlines a better chance of moving their remaining planes and crews to where they can transport passengers, rather than being snowbound.

“It’s inconvenient, but it’s better for the passengers,” he said. “If you’re stuck at Chicago O’Hare and sleeping in a cot, that’s a much worse situation.”

(This version CORRECTS third paragraph to note number includes arrivals and departures)