Most airlines were giving up on flying in and out of New York, Boston and other cities in the Northeast Friday as a massive storm threatened to dump snow by the foot on the region.

Airlines were generally shutting down operations in the afternoon at the three big New York-area airports as well as Boston, Providence, R.I.; Portland, Maine; and other Northeast airports. They're hoping to resume flights on Saturday, although schedules weren't expected to be closer to normal until Sunday.

Flight-tracking website FlightAware said airlines canceled more than 4,300 flights on Friday and Saturday in advance of the storm.