Aer Lingus has cancelled flights to New York today as snowstorms cripple large parts of the US east coast.
New York and Boston are preparing for the arrival of the same major snowstorm that shut down airports and caused major traffic disruption in Washington, Philadelphia and other cites in the eastern United States last night.
Four Aer Lingus flights to and from New York's JFK Airport have been cancelled because of forecasts of heavy snow in New York. Customers holding confirmed reservations on flights should contact Aer Lingus Reservations on 0818-365000, the company said.
In the United States, the National Weather Service predicted about two feet of snow today.
The snowfall - one of the heaviest ever recorded in many cities - began before dawn on Sunday, triggering a state of emergency in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the US capital.
Flights were halted at Washington's Reagan Airport and Baltimore-Washington airport yesterday morning and operations were sharply curtailed at Dulles airport outside the capital. At Philadelphia airport, just one flight in four took off and many of those were seriously delayed.
Many stranded air passengers resorted to trains, which are equipped with snow plows, and the national railway service Amtrak said it would run a service throughout the night.
The storm wreaked havoc on Washington's subway system. By yesterday afternoon, trains which normally arrive every few minutes were running only once every two hours.
In downtown Washington, restaurants, coffee shops and bookshops were shuttered and for the first time in seven years, Washington's Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo, national monuments and memorials were closed.
President George W. Bush cut short his weekend visit to the presidential retreat at Camp David yesterday, in an attempt to beat the snow back to the White House.
But his 14-car motorcade got bogged down and was stuck behind snow ploughs, turning what was normally a 90-minute drive into a two-and-a-half-hour trek.
Additional reporting AFP
