ATLANTA — After a day and a half, Delta Air Lines has finally taken off from Atlanta, hoping to land a plane in Nassau, Bahamas.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has four daily scheduled flights to Nassau out of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
On Monday morning, as Hurricane Dorian lashed the northern portion of the Bahamas, including the Abacos Islands and Grand Bahama Island with wind gusts approaching 200 mph, a Delta Air Lines flight left Atlanta, heading for Nassau, located about 130 miles to the south of Grand Bahama Island.
Shortly before the Boeing 717 airliner with 42 passengers arrived, dangerous crosswinds on the main runway at Nassau's Lynden Pindling International Airport forced Delta Flight 337 to turn around and return to Atlanta.
RELATED: Delta flight turns around after trying to fly into Bahamas, despite Hurricane Dorian's fury
According to officials, the airport in Nassau was open on Monday, but the conditions were not safe enough to permit the airliner to land.
Delta said the passengers would be accommodated on a Delta flight to Nassau on Tuesday.
By midday on Tuesday, one of the scheduled flights had already been canceled, while two of the remaining three were significantly delayed. An additional flight to Nassau, scheduled from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, was also significantly delayed.
According to a Delta spokesperson, airline officials are working to determine whether or not to cancel the remainder of the flights into Nassau for the remainder of the day on Tuesday.
After the carrier canceled all of Monday's flights to Nassau, they said they would rebook all passengers on outbound flights on Tuesday and provide hotels for their customers following the inconvenience.
One other carrier, JetBlue also attempted to fly its own scheduled service into Nassau on Monday and was forced to divert flights to other airports.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Delta was able to take off from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, headed for Nassau, more than four-and-a-half hours late.
Delta's Flight 660, scheduled to depart Atlanta at 9:53 Tuesday morning, finally left at 2:34 p.m. It is arrived at Nassau's Lynden Pindling International Airport at 4:28 p.m.
A second Delta flight from Atlanta, Flight 918, departed Hartsfield-Jackson at 4:15 p.m., more than three hours after its original departure time of 1:09 p.m. A Delta flight from New York's Kennedy Airport departed at 1:05 p.m., more than two hours late, and arrived in Nassau at 4:20 p.m.
JetBlue was able to fly one flight from New York City into Nassau early Tuesday morning. As of midday, additional scheduled service by the air carrier into Nassau on Tuesday has, so far, been delayed.
TRACKING DORIAN |