As heavy snow and high winds swept across North America this week, the aviation system once again hit a breaking point.  More than 12,000 flights were cancelled between Sunday and Tuesday across the U.S., with New York’s major airports among the hardest hit.  At the peak of the storm, cancellation rates were nearly twenty times higher than a typical winter day – a reminder of how quickly disruption cascades when operators are juggling volatile weather, complex regulations, and disconnected sources of operational information.