Boston Logan spent Saturday and Sunday near the top of the national delay board, and it walked into this storm already short a runway. Runway 9/27 has been closed since August 31 for EMAS construction — a closure this site covered before this storm ever formed, back when it was already generating chronic delays on ordinary clear days. Then a slow-moving nor’easter parked itself over southeastern Massachusetts for the better part of three days, dropping over 7 inches of rain in spots and gusting past 70 mph on Cape Cod. Cape Air grounded its entire operation. Four major carriers now have weather waivers live too, though those matter less than the runway math below if you’re actually trying to get in or out of Boston this week.

The construction closure was Logan’s problem before any storm showed up. This weekend just proved how much spare capacity disappeared the moment Massport took that strip offline. Runway first, waivers second — here’s what’s actually live right now.

Quick Verdict

Factor	Detail
Storm type	Slow-moving September nor’easter, rare for the calendar month
Duration	High wind warning in effect Friday through Sunday, Sept 25–27
Peak winds	40–55 mph in Boston; up to 70 mph on Cape Cod and near Bourne
Rainfall	Over 7 inches in spots on the South Coast and Cape
Logan Saturday	261 cancellations
Logan Sunday, 3pm	306 cancellations, 294 delays, per FlightAware
Cape Air	Entire operation grounded
Runway status	Logan’s 9/27 closed since Aug 31 for EMAS work, through mid-November
Airlines with waivers	Delta, JetBlue, United, American — all different airport lists
Ground transit	MBTA ferries canceled all weekend; Amtrak canceled at least six trains Sunday
Power	~11,000 New England customers still out Sunday night

Why Logan Took This Worse Than a Normal Storm

Logan doesn’t have a spare runway to lean on right now. Massport closed Runway 9/27 on August 31 for a 75-day EMAS construction job that runs through mid-November, and that closure was already producing 400-plus delay days on ordinary weather before this storm showed up. Take one more runway’s worth of capacity off the table — which is effectively what a high wind warning does, since crosswind limits and reduced visibility force controllers to bunch arrivals onto fewer usable strips — and there’s no slack left to absorb it.

That’s the mechanism behind the numbers. FlightAware showed 261 cancellations at Logan on Saturday, September 26, and by 3pm Sunday the count had climbed to 306 cancellations with another 294 flights delayed. Cape Air — Logan’s commuter operator to the Cape and Islands, flying small twin-engine aircraft that hit their wind limits long before a mainline jet does — canceled its schedule outright rather than try to run it. A storm this size would have been a rough weekend at Logan in any normal year. Landing on top of a runway closure that was already producing the worst single-airport delay totals in the country on calm days, it turned into back-to-back 300-cancellation days.

The Storm Itself

The National Weather Service’s Boston/Norton office put a high wind warning into effect Friday and kept it running into Sunday morning, calling for northeast winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts of 40 to 55 mph across Boston and the immediate coast. Cape Cod and the islands got the worse end of it — gusts topping 70 mph were recorded near Bourne and on Cape Cod, the kind of number that’s ordinarily a hurricane-season statistic, not a late-September one.

The rain was the slower, more persistent problem. This wasn’t a fast-moving front that dumps an inch and clears out. It sat over the region for two straight days, and totals in Bourne and other South Coast towns topped 7 inches by the time it finally pushed off the coast Sunday night. Saturated ground plus sustained wind is exactly the combination that drops trees onto power lines, which is where the outage numbers come from.

The Waivers, For When You Need One

The runway closure explains why Logan’s numbers were this bad. The waivers below just explain your options if you’re one of the travelers those numbers caught. All four major carriers serving Boston have something active for this storm, and the airport lists, travel windows, and rebook-by dates don’t match across any of them. Find your own airline’s row — assuming JetBlue’s terms apply because you saw a headline about “airlines waiving fees” is how people end up eating a change fee they didn’t need to pay.

Airline	Airports covered	Travel window	Rebook by
Delta	Boston (BOS) and Northeast network	Through storm period	New travel by Sept 29, no fare difference
JetBlue	11 airports, including Hyannis, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard	Sept 25–27	Per JetBlue’s travel alerts page
United	10 Northeast airports, Philadelphia to Portland, Maine	Sept 25–27	New travel by Sept 29, same cabin and cities
American	16 Northeast airports, including BOS, JFK, LGA, EWR, PHL	Sept 25–27	Rebook by Sept 29

Delta Air Lines

Delta’s Boston weather advisory has been the most active of the four, and it kept moving as the storm did — Delta extended the waiver through September 29 once it became clear Sunday’s cancellations would run heavy. Eligible travelers can move into the same cabin with no fare difference charged, as long as the new itinerary flies by the 29th. Delta also flagged that the storm was constraining fuel deliveries into Logan itself — a detail that matters because it means Delta’s own operational math, not just the weather, could keep pushing that deadline if Monday and Tuesday stay messy.

JetBlue

JetBlue’s travel alerts page covers the widest geographic spread of small airports of any carrier here — 11 in total, including Hyannis, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard, the same island airports Cape Air normally covers on the commuter side. That matters this weekend specifically, since Cape Air wasn’t flying at all. If you had a JetBlue ticket to or from the Cape and Islands for September 25 through 27, this is the waiver that applies to you, and it’s a narrower island-specific list than what Delta, United, or American are running.

United Airlines

United’s advisory covers 10 Northeast airports stretching from Philadelphia up to Portland, Maine, for travel between September 25 and 27. Rebooked travel has to depart by September 29, in the same cabin and between the same cities as the original ticket — the standard shape of a United weather waiver, and consistent with how the airline handled Hurricane Nolo’s Hawaii waiver a few days earlier.

American Airlines

American’s alert has the longest airport list by a wide margin — 16 Northeast airports, covering Boston, JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Philadelphia, and most of the smaller hubs in between. Broader geography usually means a longer list of qualifying routes, which is the tradeoff worth knowing if your ticket touches a smaller airport that Delta, JetBlue, or United didn’t bother naming.

How Do I Check Which Waiver Covers My Boston Flight?

1. Confirm your airline first. These four waivers don’t transfer between carriers, even for flights on the same route the same day.
2. Match your airport to the specific list, not just “Boston area.” American names 16 airports; Delta and United focus on fewer. Flying Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard narrows this fast — JetBlue names both, the others may not.
3. Check your original travel dates fall inside September 25–27. A flight booked for September 29 doesn’t automatically qualify just because the storm was still clearing out.
4. Note your rebook-by deadline. Three of the four carriers are using September 29; confirm yours before you assume you have more time.
5. Make the change before your original flight’s scheduled departure. Waivers cover proactive changes, not after-the-fact complaints about a flight that already left without you.

Beyond Flights: Ferries, Trains, and Power

Flights weren’t the only thing this storm took down. The MBTA canceled all ferry service for both Saturday and Sunday, which matters if your travel plans included the commuter boats to Hingham, Hull, or the harbor islands — those routes simply weren’t running, waiver or no waiver. Amtrak canceled at least six trains running through Boston on Sunday, citing weather and, in some cases, debris on the tracks from downed limbs.

And roughly 11,000 New England customers were still without power Sunday night, down from a much larger peak outage count earlier in the storm but still enough to complicate getting to the airport for plenty of travelers on the South Shore and Cape. If your trip depends on someone picking you up or dropping you off in an area that lost power, confirm that arrangement still works before you rely on it.

Are You Owed Anything Beyond the Waiver?

Nothing requires an airline to offer a weather waiver in the first place. Delta, JetBlue, United, and American extended these on their own — it’s cheaper for them to rebook you for free than to have you show up at a gate for a flight that was never going to leave. If your flight is actually canceled outright, DOT rules already entitle you to a refund or rerouting regardless of what the waiver’s fine print says. Weather-caused delays and cancellations don’t trigger cash compensation the way a mechanical or crew issue can, and that doesn’t change under the DOT’s new delay rule either — that rule takes effect October 19 and reclassifies what counts as within an airline’s control, not whether storms qualify as an excuse.

If you end up covering a hotel or meals out of pocket while Logan sorts itself out, credit card trip delay coverage kicks in for delays past a set number of hours regardless of cause, on cards that offer it. That’s a steadier backstop than waiting to see whether an airline’s goodwill waiver stretches to cover a hotel night it never promised in the first place.

The Bottom Line

Take away either the runway closure or the storm and this is a manageable weekend at Logan. Stack them on top of each other and you get back-to-back 300-cancellation days at an airport that had no spare capacity left to absorb them. The construction runs through mid-November, so any storm between now and then — even a smaller one — is walking into the same reduced capacity Logan had this weekend. If your travel touches Boston before that runway reopens, that’s worth knowing regardless of which airline you’re flying. Cape Air isn’t flying at all right now, MBTA ferries are down, and Amtrak has cancellations of its own layered on top — check your specific carrier’s waiver terms, but don’t mistake the waiver for the whole story.

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Details current as of September 28, 2026, based on reporting from the National Weather Service, CBS Boston, The Boston Globe, Delta News Hub, and airline advisory pages linked above. Cancellation counts and waiver terms are changing quickly — verify your specific flight directly with your airline before traveling.