This is a rush transcript from "Your World," October 30, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF "YOUR WORLD": All right, this shows how widespread Sandy's damage was.
You’re looking at Kent Village up in Maryland. We had shown you a little earlier the scenes off of Lake Erie outside Cleveland where the waves are still pounding. But this is still -- just gives you an idea of how widespread the storm was, covering an area close to 1,000 miles, involving some 20 states, and all of this coming at a time when travel in and around this country has effectively gone to a stop.
The number of affected canceled flights now north of 18,000 and some airport officials say it could take upwards of a week, or more, for airlines to be fully up and running.
To aviation expert Michael Boyd on what to expect.
Michael, what do we expect?
MICHAEL BOYD, PRESIDENT, THE BOYD GROUP: Well, I think this time the airlines prepared pretty well. And airlines respond very, very quickly.
Remember, getting an airplane in the sky to make money. When they sit, they make none. But I think now we're going to have a facility issue. Keep in mind La Guardia Airport was flooded. So, you have the landing lights and the directional signs and you have jetways covering in a salty brine.
It may be more the airport facilities that will slow things down than the airlines themselves.
CAVUTO: So, how do they handle all of the delays? People who in the last 48 or 72 hours have been having to just sort of sit and wait, when flights are slowly resumed in the areas that were not as adversely affected, a lot of that will depend on whether a jet can even make its way to them, right?
BOYD: Yes, absolutely.
It's like if there are only 16 gates at La Guardia instead of the number they normally had, it's going to be a slow comeback. But this time around, we do not have a lot of stranded people because they never could get to the destination to get stranded in the first place.
But it will come back I think a lot quicker than you might think, but the real issue is how badly damaged are our airports in the Northeast. And that's going to be the determinate of whether we have everything back to normal by Sunday or by Wednesday.
CAVUTO: Yes. When we were covering this last night, Michael, I was taking a look at what was going on at La Guardia, at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, Newark Liberty. That was just in my neck of the woods and then we were taking a look at how the runways were getting pounded at Reagan National in Washington.
These are not easily or quickly fixable problems, right?
BOYD: Well, yes.
If you have the landing light system go out because again it has been flooded, which I don't thing will happen, that could be a couple of days to fix and make sure it's right. So we have a safety issue to come back. My feeling is the airlines will be ready probably before we can fix the facilities that have been damaged by flooding at these airports.
CAVUTO: Wow. Michael, thank you very, very much, Michael Boyd.
BOYD: Thank you.
Content and Programming Copyright 2012 Fox News Network, Inc. Copyright CQ-2012 Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox