TEB Delays Run 4.5 Hours; BWI, Almost SEVEN Hours

There's no other way to say it. Thursday was an absolutely horrible day for passengers trying to travel onboard a commercial airliner in the New England region.

Why? Blame it on storms in the southeast and midwest, a spokeman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told Newsday.

"Generally speaking, even though the weather might be good here bad weather elsewhere can cause problems," PA spokesman Pasquale DiFulco said. "It looks like they're having delays in Philadelphia, in [Washington] DC. They're having problems in Detroit.

"That can cause flights to stack up," DiFulco said.

He has a gift for understatement. Bottlenecks that cropped up throughout the afternoon mushroomed into hours-long ground holds. As of 2130 EDT Thursday night, the FAA reported delays stretching as long as three-and-a-half hours at LaGuardia, and a staggering four-and-a-half hours at Teterboro.

And even THAT wasn't the worst delay seen Thursday. According to the FAA, ground stops and taxi holds at Washington Dulles ran as long as 5.5 hours; at Baltimore-Washington International, planes were stuck at the gate nearly seven hours.

At that rate, you really might as well drive. Even if you're heading to San Francisco.

As ANN reported earlier this week, the Air Transport Association has taken something of a "we told you so" approach to ever-worsening news about airline delays.

"We're not surprised by the numbers," said Air Transport Association spokesman David Castelveter, in response to the news airline delays are at their worst levels in at least 13 years. "We have been saying for some time: It's going to get worse before it gets better."

FMI: www.fly.faa.gov, www.airlines.org