Bad weather disrupting flight plans

WASHINGTON – Air travelers were stranded across the country Thursday as severe weather disrupted thousands of flights on one of the airline industry’s busiest days of the holiday season – complicating the plans of passengers trying to make it home for Christmas.

Travel was snarled by a major storm that dumped more than two feet of snow in Colorado and forced authorities to close the Denver airport for nearly two days.

Poor weather also struck overseas. London was hit with its worst fog in 15 years, causing a wave of flight cancellations.

United Airlines, which has a major hub in Denver, canceled 2,000 flights across its system since Wednesday. Other weather problems in the United States created additional delays that rippled through the country.

Low clouds, wind and rain hampered operations in Chicago and in the New York area. Flights into Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Thursday were delayed up to four hours. Flights into Newark or New York were backed up by more than one hour, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.

The National Weather Service said that the snowstorm was expected to taper off by Thursday night. But rain is expected to batter the East Coast early today and into Saturday. Heavy showers, which could further delay flights, are forecast this morning in Atlanta, the location of the nation’s busiest airport, the weather service reported.