Smoke from more than 400 wildfires burning in Canada’s north has drifted across the border into the eastern US, creating air travel chaos for thousands of travelers on Thursday.
More than 1,000 flights were delayed by mid-morning, according to FlightAware.com, a flight tracking service.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it had delayed all flights heading into New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport nationwide, as well as certain flights bound for New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
The FAA also warned that delays were possible at airports in Dallas, Charlotte, North Carolina, Philadelphia, and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport were seeing the most significant disruptions as of 11 AM EDT Thursday, FlightAware's ‘MiseryMap’ showed.
FAA spokesperson Sam Ausby, in a video posted on Twitter, explained that “as aircraft get close to the airports, they will need to slow down in order to maintain safety, to see the runways, and to see the taxiways, so delays are possible due to that.”
The agency added that its travel advisories would change as weather conditions evolve throughout the day.
New York City's air quality was 183 on the air quality index scale, making it the worst in the world, according to IQAir.com, a Swiss monitoring service.
Contact Sean at sean@proactiveinvestors.com