Hurricane Dorian plays havoc with travellers as more than 1,000 flights cancelled today

The massive hurricane hitting the Bahamas and off the Florida coast is throwing travel plans for hundreds of thousands of people into disarray, as Dorian has resulted in the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights in and around its path on Tuesday alone.

Flight-tracking website Flight Aware says 638 flights outbound from Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Palm Beach airports in Florida have been cancelled, along with almost as many inbound flights to those cities. Those cancellations are on top of flights that were cancelled through the weekend.

Even Canadian airlines are impacted.

Calgary-based WestJet has cancelled its flights to Fort Lauderdale "until it is safe to resume flying" and in the meantime is allowing anyone travelling to parts of Florida or Nassau to rebook without any added fees.

Air Canada, meanwhile, is allowing passengers travelling through Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas to rebook, and is waiving flight change fees for passengers scheduled to fly to various airports in Florida and Georgia.

Bahamian media reported Freeport-Grand Bahama International Airport was submerged. The airport in the capital of Nassau, which is further south, was operational.

Hurricane Dorian has walloped the Bahamas, causing widespread damage and at least five deaths. The hurricane, which has weakened to a Category 3, has essentially parked itself over the Caribbean island, worsening the damage there, but most forecasting models projected the storm to move west, as it is currently doing, before curling up the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.

That would likely cause a cascading effect across the North American travel network, as thousands of flights in new cities so far unaffected are rerouted.

Delta has issued a travel waiver that extends into next week for anyone taking a Delta flight to Georgia, or South and North Carolina. The waiver means passengers will be able to rebook their travel plans without a fee.

American Airlines has a similar waiver in place for flights in and out of 20 U.S. destinations.