Flight cancellations top 7,000 for the week

Last update: 5:10 p.m. ET.

A rough week for air travel got even worse Thursday as airlines grounded more than 1,000 flights for the sixth day in a row.

All told, more than 7,000 flights have been canceled since Saturday, when a series of near-daily winter storms began to snarl flights across large portions of the country.

For Thursday, more than 1,300 flights had been canceled nationwide and another 4,400 delayed as of 5:15 p.m., according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. Those cancellations after the latest storm moved out of the South and through the mid-Atlantic, snarling flights from the Deep South through the Carolinas and into Virginia.

Problems also cropped up Thursday in Chicago, where close to 10% of the day's flights were canceled at O'Hare amid snow showers, blustery winds and bitter cold temperatures.

In a rare bit of good news for fliers, the Friday weather looked relatively calm. Airlines were not preemptively canceling waves of flights as they've done every other day since Saturday, though about 10 Friday flights were already scrapped as of 5 p.m. ET. Hundreds of next-day cancellations were announced before midnight every other day this week -- a string fliers will surely be happy to see end.

As with previous storms, airlines waived change fees for customers ticketed to fly into airports experiencing poor weather. The policies varied by airline, though they generally allowed customers to make one change without paying the customary change fee.

Charlotte was the hardest hit airport as of early Thursday morning. More than 500 flights – about a third of the airport's daily schedule – had been scrapped as of 5:15 p.m. ET. The airport is a major hub for American and its merger partner, US Airways. About 20% of the airport's flights were grounded Wednesday, also because of wintry weather.

Flight schedules took a hit at airports across the Carolinas and southern Virginia, where large chunks of the day's schedule were axed at airports like Raleigh/Durham; Greensboro, N.C.; Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C.; Norfolk, Va.; Newport News, Va.; and Richmond, Va.

Farther south, residual weather-related delays and cancellations were being reported at airports in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. Those areas suffered the worst of the latest storm Wednesday. Many of those areas were hit by different winter storm a day earlier.

Among the southern airports still seeing Thursday problems: Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International. About 170 flights were canceled at the world's busiest airport so far Thursday. That represented about 7% of the airport's schedule today, but it follows on the heels of nearly 600 cancellations on Wednesday.

Other airports in the region seeing high-than-normal cancellation tallies included Birmingham, Ala.; Huntsville, Ala.; Jackson, Miss.; Monroe, La.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Nashville.

The storm had moved into the mid-Atlantic, where moderate snow in Washington, D.C., ended Thursday morning.

Cancellations ticked up at Washington's Reagan National Airport by evening, with about 70 cancellations -- or about 7% of the day's schedule. About two-dozen flights were canceled at Washington Dulles and Baltimore/Washington International.

Light snow was to overtake the delay-prone airports in New York and Philadelphia by midday, but only an inch or less was expected to accumulate. Nonetheless, fliers head to or through those airports should keep an eye on the schedules there Thursday. Those airports frequently see long delays and some cancellations even in moderate weather events.

Delays and cancellations had begun to inch up at those airports by noon ET, with the worst in Philadelphia. About 70 flights -- roughly 5% of the day's schedule -- had been canceled as of 5:15 p.m. ET. At LaGuardia, about 5% of the day's flights had been grounded, according to FlightAware. Disruptions at Newark and JFK were noticeable, but relatively minor.