Tunnel to nowhere: A mobile staircase at New York's LaGuardia Airport stands alone, surrounded by flood water Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225635/Hurricane-Sandy-Virgin-begin-flying-New-York-JFK-reopens-BA-plans-start-flights-tonight.html#ixzz2BXnrk1dj Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook *********************** PUBLISHED: 10:13 GMT, 31 October 2012 | UPDATED: 14:11 GMT, 31 October 2012 Virgin Atlantic flights from London to New York are scheduled to fly today for the first time since the biggest storm in US history caused travel chaos across the East Coast. The first Virgin flight scheduled to leave Heathrow at 9.20am flew out at 11.30am but another five flights are due to fly on time as New York's JFK and Newark's airport reopened. All BA flights to Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia are planned to operate as normal while the majority of the airline's flights to New York JFK and Newark were cancelled again today. The operator cancelled five flights from Heathrow to JFK, and one to Newark, but will send two planes to JFK this evening and one to Newark. Two Virgin Atlantic flights from New York were cancelled today but will send seven flights to New York from Heathrow and five return flights. Virgin is also putting on an extra flight which will leave Heathrow for New York around 1.50pm today and fly back from the hurricane-hit city later. Virgin had to axe its VS18 service from Newark and its VS26 flight from New York today. These would have landed at Heathrow this evening. However, the airline was able to operate normal services today to and from Boston and Washington DC. British Airways said they were launching larger aircrafts to try and accommodate more passengers, and said they had been putting stranded customers in hotels while they waited for services to resume. Nearly 18,300 flights have been canceled since Sunday as a result of the storm, including 8,183 canceled on Monday, 7,258 on Tuesday and 2,829 so far for Wednesday, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. Sandy grounded more than 18,000 flights across the North east of America and the globe, and it could be days before some passengers finally get to board their planes. But Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo said that JFK is expected to reopen today. The three big New York airports were closed on Tuesday by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Stewart International Airport remained open, but airlines had suspended operations there. A BA spokesman said yesterday: 'Customer safety with regards to Hurricane Sandy remains our highest priority and following advice from the US authorities we have decided to cancel 15 return flights to and from the East Coast of the USA on Tuesday. 'We are doing all we can to help customers whose flights have been cancelled and will look to use larger aircraft on some routes when the full flying schedule resumes to help get customers to their correct destination as quickly as we can. 'We are taking advice from US authorities and planning our operation and providing customer advice around that.' Yesterday's chaos came after tens of thousands of people were left stranded on both sides of the Atlantic following mass cancellations on Monday. The route between the East Coast of the US and Western Europe is one of the busiest in the world. More than 2.6million passengers flew from New York's JFK Airport to Heathrow in London last year - an average of more than 7,100 per day. On average, almost 14,200 passengers fly from JFK to London, Paris, Madrid and Frankfurt each day. The hurricane was estimated to affect up to 50million people, forcing the shutdown of transport networks, schools and financial markets in New York City and beyond, sending coastal residents fleeing for higher ground, and threatening a dangerous mix of high winds, heavy rain and a surging 11ft wall of water. The flight cancellations surpassed those of a major winter storm in early 2011 that forced 14,000 flights to be scrapped over four days. Among carriers which had to cancel flights were US Airways, American Airlines and Delta. Even if storm damage is minor it could be a week before operations are normal at major East Coast airports, said Angela Gittens, director general of the Airports Council International, a trade group for airports worldwide. 'The storm has such a wide swath and so many major airports are involved that it's going to take some time (to recover) because those airplanes are so far away,' said Gittens, who served as aviation director at Miami International Airport Dade during several hurricanes from 2001 to 2004. Britons already in America were contending with shutdown public transport, with bus and train services in New York and Philadelphia among those affected. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225635/Hurricane-Sandy-Virgin-begin-flying-New-York-JFK-reopens-BA-plans-start-flights-tonight.html#ixzz2BXnQLawG Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook