Snowstorm cripples Chicago travel as O’Hare cancels more than 600 flights
A heavy winter storm that swept across the Midwest sent Chicago’s airports into chaos on Saturday, with more than 600 flights canceled at O’Hare even before the heaviest snow hit.
By 9:45 a.m., O’Hare had already logged 627 flight cancellations and 331 delays, according to FlightAware. The Chicago Department of Aviation noted that passengers were spending a lot of time in terminals, catching the average delay of about 37 minutes as they tried to regroup.
The FAA issued a ground delay at O’Hare that stretched to roughly five hours. A brief morning ground stop had been lifted by 9:45 a.m., but disruptions continued.
Midway Airport fared better overall: by 9:50 a.m. it had 76 cancellations and most delays were under 15 minutes. Those cancellations represented about 29 % of Midway’s total flights, compared with 46 % at O’Hare.
The storm was projected to bring up to 10 inches of snow across the area, threatening to make Thanksgiving travel on the roads extremely difficult. Illinois State Police urged drivers to slow down, expect slick pavement, and give extra space as conditions worsened.
The National Weather Service warned that travel could become “very difficult to impossible,” with heavy snowfall and strong winds posing isolated power outages.
In response, crews in Chicago deployed more than 220 salt spreaders overnight to keep the main roads, bridges, and DuSable Lake Shore Drive open. The winter storm warning remains in effect through early Sunday.
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