Flights taking off as hurricane Irene weakens

WASHINGTON: US airlines resumed limited operations on Sunday at Washington-area airports lashed by Hurricane Irene while New York, the nation's busiest air hub, assessed the storm's wrath.

US oil refiners along the US East Coast cut operations while terminals, pipelines and other energy infrastructure weathered Tropical Storm Irene, downgraded from hurricane levels early on Sunday morning.Seven refineries with a total of 1,229,200 barrels per day of refining capacity-73% of the 1.7 million bpd total in the US Northeast-are in the storm's projected path.

Irene lashed New York with heavy winds and driving rain on Sunday, knocking out power and flooding some of Lower Manhattan's deserted streets but so far the feared major devastation was avoided as the storm lost some of its punch. About 370,000 city residents were ordered to leave their homes in low-lying areas ahead of Irene's arrival, many of them in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.

Irene was blamed for at least 11 deaths in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Maryland as it churned up the East Coast.

The NYSE and Nasdaq expect to be open for trading as usual on Monday morning. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq repeated on Saturday that, despite the arrival of Hurricane Irene in New York, both expect to conduct a normal trading session on Monday.

With skies clearing and damage from feared Irene minimal, a few arrivals descended on the capital area's three airports - Reagan National and Dulles in Virginia and BWI in Maryland.

The biggest airlines canceled virtually all service for the day throughout the Northeast and hoped to restart flights in earnest on Monday. It could take a couple of days to get operations back to normal, aviation officials said.

Tom Hendricks, vice president of the Air Transport Association, an industry body, said airlines "slowly repositioning" jets and crew that were hastily moved away from the storm's path.

He said operations in New York would resume Monday afternoon but added "it will take a couple of days to get the networks back."

Jet Blue chief executive Dave Barger told CNBC television his company's first flight from New York would be at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Monday. The US domestic carrier accounts for more than 10 percent of the cancelled flights.

More than 10,000 flights were canceled from Friday through Monday, most at New York-area airports that handle about 6,000 flights per day and 100 million passengers a year. Irene forced the New York city subway and bus system to close for the first time because of a weather disaster. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has warned that trains and buses may not be running again until Monday afternoon.