Airlines cancelled thousands of flights in the US northeast Wednesday as a swirl of strong winds, snow, sleet and ice from the fourth major storm this month crippled the region. Airlines scrapped more than 4,400 flights within, to or from the United States, according to flight tracking website FlightAware, and more than 3,000 other US flights were delayed as the latest "nor'easter" dumped snow and ice on New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington. The cancellations piled on to thousands more canceled flights due to an unrelenting series of late-winter storms. In addition to creating headaches for passengers, these storms can rack up millions of dollars in costs for airlines, as carriers reallocate aircraft and crew, and swallow the cost of passengers who don't re-book travel. "This has been a much harsher late winter than we've seen for quite some time. It does have an impact on carriers' bottom lines," CFRA Research analyst Jim Corridore said.<br/>
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Ultra-long flights like the 17-hour non-stop service Australia's Qantas is launching from Perth to London on Saturday are doing more than stretching aircraft ranges - they are lowering ticket prices for more conventional routes, data shows. The latest round of global direct flights cost about 20% more than those with one or more stops, making them most popular with business travellers, agents say. But the premium is deceptive. The difference in prices is mostly because the cost of tickets on conventional routes has been falling. After United started non-stop Singapore-Los Angeles flights last October, average ticket prices on one-stop rivals fell by 15% relative to 2016, according to Expedia data. That meant customers willing to pay 20% extra to fly United and save a few hours were only paying 2% more than they would have paid for one-stop flights a year earlier. "There is a lot of competitive pressure and those ultra-long haul flights are adding to it," said James Marshall, Expedia's VP for transport partner services. "The overall demand seems to be there but the pressure is on the price." The number of ultra-long haul flights - those over 7,000 nautical miles - has nearly tripled to 19 over the last decade, according to travel data provider OAG, as smaller, fuel-efficient twin-engine planes like Boeing Co's 787 and Airbus SE's A350 have entered service. Most of the new ultra-long routes are flown once a day on jets with fewer than half the number of seats as A380 superjumbos and an upsized business class. Fears they would threaten the business model of hub carriers like Emirates and Qatar Airways have so far proven overblown. Instead, demand is rising as prices fall.<br/>