TRANSPORTATION

Airlines Brace for Blizzard’s Financial Impact: No one has calculated the effect of last week’s East Coast storm on air carriers’ financial statements, but several analysts said they hope to get preliminary numbers when airlines begin releasing quarterly results, starting with AMR Corp. on Wednesday. AMR’s American Airlines unit canceled more than 1,200 flights, Continental Airlines more than 1,000, United Airlines lost 700 flights, and USAir, whose operations are concentrated on the East Coast, canceled almost 3,000 flights over three days. “The first quarter’s going to take a real hit,” said Scott Hamilton, editor of Commercial Aviation Report, an industry trade publication. Analysts cautioned, however, that airline stocks are less likely to fall on concerns about a snowstorm than they are on general fears about the economy.