US carriers are slowly resuming operations in storm-battered mid-Atlantic states as former Hurricane Florence continues to cause heavy rains and flooding.

The tropical storm on Saturday US East Coast time had moved inland over eastern South Carolina and was forecast to turn westward and then northward through the Carolinas and Ohio Valley by Monday.

Delta Air Lines said it was operating a reduced flight schedule, reflecting the airline’s primary concerns for safety, and it had canceled almost 250 flights since Wednesday US time as a result of the storm.

“Following the re-opening of Charleston, S.C., (CHS) Saturday afternoon, Delta will resume operations with seven arrivals and two departures,’’ the airline said.

Read Cathay cancels hundreds of flights due to super typhoon

“All operations at Fayetteville, N.C., (FAY), Jacksonville, N.C., (OAJ), Myrtle Beach, S.C., (MYR), New Bern, N.C., (EWN) and Wilmington, N.C., (ILM) have been cancelled for Saturday and are expected to resume Sunday afternoon pending continued assessments of airport facilities and infrastructure.”

American Airlines, which operates a hub at Charlotte,  said Saturday it was also preparing to resume operations.

“Due to the storm, a number of airports continue to remain closed along the North Carolina/South Carolina coast,’’ it said.  Our team of meteorologists at the American Airlines Integrated Operations Center (IOC) in Fort Worth, Texas, are closely monitoring the track of this storm as we prepare to resume operations.

“At our Charlotte hub, we anticipate scattered cancellations through midday on Sept. 16.

“The majority of these cancellations will be on smaller, regional aircraft.”

Airlines continue to provide travel waivers for destinations affected by the storm.

Delta said it would also dispatch a team of more than 30 employees to Charleston and other hurricane-impacted destinations to help restart flight operations.

“Even as Florence’s worst effects diminish, Delta will be keeping a close eye on flooding and damages to city and airport infrastructure that may pose additional challenges to resuming flights,’’ it said.

“The airline will continue to send supplies such as non-perishable food and water where needed and is also warning airports to the west of the coastal Carolina region to stay alert as conditions and forecast predictions may change.”

Passengers have been advised by their carriers to check websites, apps and texts for more information.

Here are websites for major US airlines:

• Southwest Airlines
• Delta Airlines
• United Airlines
• American Airlines
• JetBlue
• Alaska
• Spirit
• Frontier
• Allegiant

Hurricane Florence may have been downgraded to category 1 but a monster storm still stalks the planet.

Super Typhoon Mangkhut remains a category 5 storm and is even bigger than the hurricane now battering the US was at its peak.

Wind speed at the center of the typhoon is hitting 180 mph (285kms) as it heads towards the Philippines island of Luzon.

Thousands of people have been evacuated and there are fears Mangkhut could cause as much damage as Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in 2013.

READ: Hundreds of flights canceled as Hurricane Florence arrives.

Another typhoon, Haima, destroyed 14.000 houses  and damaged 50,000 in 2016.

Mangkhut has already torn through Guam and the Marshall Islands and is expected to make landfall early Saturday.

It is expected to remain in the super typhoon category as it heads into the South China Sea.

Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific have both canceled flights and are offering passengers the ability to rebook.

PAL said it had canceled flights to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul Friday as well as a slew of domestic flights.

Two international flights and 11 domestic flights were canceled Saturday and four flights from the Middle East delayed.

“We ask our passengers to reconsider their travel plans for the coming two days, as we expect there to be more cancellations or delays,’’ PAL said.

“ PAL will closely monitor the typhoon situation and will provide updates on any further changes in schedules or cancellations.

Please continue to monitor the status of your flights by logging on to www.philippineairlines.com and check the flight status page within 48 hours before your scheduled trip, or you may download the PAL Mobile App for easier monitoring.

“ We will also post advisories on our Official PAL Facebook page.”

READ PAL’s travel alert.

Cebu Pacific also a host of cancellation through to Monday.

It “strongly advised” affected passengers not to go to the airport, saying they could rebook their flights for travel within 30 days of their original departure date, place the cost of the ticket in travel fund for future use or get a full refund.

“Other passengers flying in and out of Manila and Clark from September 13, 2018, until Saturday (September 15, 2018), as well as those flying to and from Hong Kong and Macau on Monday (September 17, 2018), may also avail of the above options,’’ it said

“Passengers are encouraged to rebook or refund before their flights through the “Manage Booking” section of the Cebu Pacific website (www.cebupacificair.com).

“We expect to receive a high volume of requests. To ease the process, affected passengers may send us a message on our official Facebook (facebook.com/cebupacificair) and Twitter (@CebuPacificAir) accounts.”

READ Cebu Pacific’s travel alert.

International passengers going through Sydney Airport will need to keep a closer eye on departure screens from September 17 as management cuts the number of public address announcements.

The cuts, dubbed a “quiet terminal” initiative, means only essential announcements — basically emergency messages — will be broadcast beyond gate areas.

The airport says the change will see it join other leading airports — including Singapore’s Changi, Dubai, Hong Kong and Helsinki  — to have embraced similar initiatives.

Read: Ryanair expects 26m pax in record London summer schedule.

“Passengers will now be able to relax without being interrupted by constant announcements,” Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert said.

“We’re always looking at how we can make the airport experience even more enjoyable for our passengers. This initiative leapt out as one that would make an immediate and material difference and would align us with the practices of the best airports globally.”

Passengers will still be told their gates or boarding time at check-in and Culbert said the airport had worked hard with airlines and others to ensure it had struck the right balance in terms of ensuring passengers had the right information to get them to their gate on time.

This included up-to-date flight information on display screens and e-directories around the terminal.

Passengers could also approach airport information desks or check the status of their flight through the Sydney Airport website as well as on  Facebook and Twitter, the airport said.

Sydney Airport also hit the news on Wednesday when New South Wales Government on announced a plan to address the airport’s notorious traffic congestion through a $A2.2 to $A2.6 billion link to the city’s motorway system.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian predicted the Sydney Gateway project, slated to open in 2023, would slash travel times to the airport from the Western Sydney suburb of Parramatta by 40 minutes.

The government said the link would be toll-free.

Ryanair will launch 23 new routes from London in 2019 as part of a record summer schedule expected to see the low-cost carrier fly millions of customers to and from the UK capital.

The new routes bring the number of routes ex-London to 180 and are expected to increase the number of customers through Ryanair’s four London Airports — Stansted, Luton, Southend and Gatwick — by 5 percent to 26 million.

The airline will base three new aircraft in Southend and add two to Luton as it introduces services to a wide array of destinations.

The new routes include Kiev, Lviv and Nantes from Stansted and  Alicante, Athens, Barcelona, Bologna, Cork and Malaga from Luton.

Fourteen new routes from Southend will see the low-cost carrier fly to  Alicante, Bilbao, Brest, Copenhagen, Cluj, Corfu, Dublin, Faro, Kosice, Malaga, Milan, Palma, Reus & Venice.

READ Luggage fees soar as airline bagmen strike.

“ Our S2019 schedule will deliver 26m customers p.a. through Stansted, Luton, Southend and Gatwick, all at the lowest fares, as we continue to grow London traffic, tourism and jobs,“  Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said.

But O’Leary continued to express concern about the increasing risk of a hard (no-deal) Brexit in March 2019.

A report on Sky News this week suggested that thousands of pilot and other aviation licenses issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency may have to be reissued if there is a hard Brexit.

“While we hope that a 21-month transition agreement from March 2019 will be agreed, recent events in the UK have added uncertainty, and we believe that the risk of a hard Brexit (which could lead to flights being grounded for a period of days or weeks) is being underestimated,” O’Leary said.

Ryanair has also lodged a complaint to the European Commission about what it says is discrimination by UK air traffic controller NATS at Stansted.

The airline says more than half of all London ATC delays in the first quarter were at Stansted while there were zero delays at Heathrow and just 10 percent at Gatwick.