DALLAS —
A powerful winter storm is threatening travel plans for tens of millions of Americans planning to travel for the holidays.
The holiday weekend could be the coldest in decades. A strong winter storm could bring heavy snow, ice and powerful winds to several parts of the country, including the Plains, Midwest and the East Coast.
In North Texas, the storm won’t bring snow, but bitter cold will move in.
Steve Cosgrove, the CEO of Dynamic Travel & Cruises, said flights in and out of North Texas may be impacted by the winter storm hitting other parts of the country.
“It’ll cause a mess here, even though the weather here may be fine,” Cosgrove said. "Cause a lot of flights start or end here, but they also will go to New York, Chicago, Detroit, all these places impacted.”
The potential flight disruptions come as AAA Texas estimates 8.9 million Texans will travel for Christmas or New Year’s.
Cosgrove doesn’t anticipate icing in DFW will lead to major delays.
“Icing should be a little bit of an issue early in the morning, but since we’re not seeing any precipitation here, it shouldn’t be an issue later in the day," Cosgrove said.
The brunt of flight issues will be from inbound flights from other cities, Cosgrove said.
Dallas resident Debra Rainbow and her family flew out of DFW Airport on Wednesday in hopes of dodging any potential flight disruptions.
“We wanted to beat the holiday rush,” Rainbow said. “I’m just excited to get to Florida to see my daughter.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) anticipates Thursday will be the busiest day to depart for Christmas travel, with more than 47,000 flights scheduled.
Some airlines are delaying and canceling flights even before the storm hits.
On Wednesday evening, data from flight-tracking site FlightAware showed that as of Wednesday evening, hundreds of Thursday flights nationwide have already been canceled.
Southwest Airlines canceled 427 flights nationwide on Thursday and 178 on Friday.
Between all airlines, there are 2,735 delays within, into or out of the U.S. on Thursday and 1,073 cancellations within, into or out of the U.S. on Thursday.
United Airlines has canceled 74 flights nationwide on Thursday, according to FlightAware.
Airlines are waiving change fees and encouraging travelers to rebook if they have the ability to do so.
Flight disruptions at airports throughout the U.S. can be monitored here.