A strong thunderstorm that moved slowly through the Atlanta metro area last night has impacted some flights from Boston Logan Airport to the South.
Fifteen upcoming flights this Saturday operated by American Airlines, JetBlue, Spirit and Delta from Boston Logan to destinations in the South such as Atlanta, Charleston, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Myrtle Beach, New Orleans, Savannah, Tampa and West Palm Beach are delayed as of 2:22 p.m., per information on the airport’s website.
In addition, four flights operated by Delta, an Atlanta-headquartered airline, were canceled, according to the airport’s website. These included a flight to Atlanta and an 8:48 p.m. flight from Boston to Detroit. Three upcoming Delta flights to Chicago O’Hare, London Heathrow and Minneapolis are delayed.
The storm in Atlanta that involved microburst winds and hail caused more than 90 diversions to other airports in the Southeast, according to a Delta spokesperson.
The storm began last night around 7:30 p.m. according to Dylan Lusk, senior meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Ga. the office that serves Atlanta. Hailstones between one and 1.5 inches in diameter fell around Atlanta’s airport causing airport officials to halt flights and inspect about 100 airplanes to check that they were safe to fly.
The storm has led to more than 400 flights out of the city’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport being canceled.
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport is the busiest in the United States in terms of passenger volume — 104.7 million people traveled through it in 2023. Lusk said that Friday’s storm had big ramifications for the national airspace because hundreds of flights are moving through Atlanta at any given time.
“That has a huge ripple effect,” Lusk said, “if you’re an airline passenger in Boston, even if your plane is going somewhere else like Chicago, if it’s coming from Atlanta ... that plane is never going to make it to you.”
Angela Mathew can be reached at angela.mathew@globe.com.