Money / flight cancellation Winter Cancellations May Cost Airlines $600M Record number of flights grounded by weather By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff Posted Feb 7, 2011 10:22 AM CST Copied Ron Zirkle, whose flight to Memphis, Tenn., has been canceled due to winter storms, is silhouetted against a snow-covered tarmac, Friday, Feb. 4, 2011, at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) If you’ve had to deal with a flight cancellation recently, rest assured that the airlines most definitely feel your pain. A seemingly never-ending string of winter storms has forced airlines to cancel a record 89,884 flights since Nov. 1, Bloomberg reports, costing them more than $629 million according to one estimate. “If this keeps up, it will really get ugly,” says one airline economist. “It’s already brutal, and it’s only the first week in February.” (More flight cancellation stories.) Report an error