A winter storm paralyzed the East Coast during the holiday weekend, shutting down airports from New York to Boston and possibly leaving some passengers stranded for days.

On Monday, airlines rolled out more than 5,000 cancellations because of runway closures at the three major New York City-area airports.

The runways will be reopened in the afternoon. However, passengers will still have to struggle to find open seats in an already competitive holiday travel season.

Over the weekend, the airlines moved their planes away from the path of the storm to prevent them from being stranded. This week the airlines are faced with the task of returning planes and personnel back to the Northeast so that they can get passengers home.

This morning, U.S. carriers canceled around 2,431 flights.

American canceled 236 flights. American Eagle cut down another 175 flights. Delta Air Lines pulled the plug on 700 of its flights. US Airways canceled another 550, and Southwest scratched 188 flights. United and Continental did not release their cancellation figures, but have both previously announced around 300 cancellations.

Rebooking may drag out into the New Year, said a spokesman from Boston Logan Airport.

The winter weather disruptions come only a week after European travelers found themselves stranded, as snow shut down some of Europe’s busiest airports.  It took five days for normal operations to resume.

Trains along the East Coast were also affected by the record snowfall. Amtrak has only limited operations between New York and Boston today, and the Long Island Railroad is operating on a truncated holiday schedule.

By Adriana Padilla for PeterGreenberg.com.

Sources: NPR, Bloomberg

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