Flights resume at JFK, Newark Liberty airports
Newark, N.J. Flights have already begun arriving at Newark Liberty and John F. Kennedy Internatioanal Airports, as two of the biggest airports serving New York City have reopened.
The first passenger flight to JFK - a JetBlue flight carrying 150 passengers - arrived from Long Beach, Calif., at 7:04 a.m. Wednesday.
The first flight into Newark, N.J., was a FedEx plane that landed at 7:12 a.m.
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Ron Marsico says the two airports reopened "on a very limited operational schedule." He urged passengers to call their carriers before heading to the airports.
All airports in the New York City area - the nation's busiest airspace - had been closed since Monday due to Hurricane Sandy, as more than 18,000 flights across the Northeast and the globe were canceled owing to the storm.
Some terminals at Newark had lost power during the superstorm but electricity returned on Tuesday.
LaGuardia Airport, however, will remain closed until further notice, as authorities assess the impact of the storm on the facility.
Flying has begun to resume at other airports. On Tuesday Delta restarted flying from Boston and Washington Dulles and Reagan. Airline spokesman Morgan Durrant said it would resume domestic flights from JFK on Wednesday.
Service was slowly returning to Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
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Also in the New York metropolitan area, Teterboro Airport in N.J. is closed; Westchester County Airport and Stewart International Airport are open.
Even if storm damage is minor it could be a week before operations are normal at major East Coast airports, said Angela Gittens, director general of the Airports Council International, a trade group for airports worldwide.
"The storm has such a wide swath and so many major airports are involved that it's going to take some time (to recover) because those airplanes are so far away," said Gittens, who served as aviation director at Miami International Airport Dade during several hurricanes from 2001 to 2004.