“Their big fear is that they don’t want to get aircraft on the ground and have them stuck in an airport because of snow and ice. As you can imagine those airplanes don’t just go back and forth to that destination, so it could have impacts further down the line to service to other cities that aren’t impacted by the weather like we aren’t here in Northeast Ohio in this case.”

McQueen says flights traveling west and deeper south are still leaving Akron/Canton Airport. But he cautions that all passengers should check with their airlines before coming to the airport because things can change quickly with a major storm like this.

Cleveland Hopkins Airport Interim Director Fred Szabo says, as of this afternoon, about 45 of the daily 200 departures have been cancelled. And because the storm missed Cleveland, he says many airlines have parked planes from cancelled flights at Hopkins, which is good for local passengers. That’s because when the storm ends, many of those planes will mean additional flights out of Cleveland to the East Coast.