for more on hurricane sandy's impact on the airline industry, dave barger, ceo of jet blue. he joins us on the fast line. jet blue canceled 75% of scheduled flights today. dave, always great to speak with you. >> >> great to be on "fast money." >> give us an update on the new york city area airports. we were just showing striking images of laguardia essentially under water. what's the timeframe here for re-opening? >> yeah, sure. i think phil lebeau is actually correct on that, although i tell you, we really have to hand it to the port authority because some very good traction is being made. we're planning right now is that kennedy airport may even start accepting some special movements of aircraft tonight. those that are moving in, say, crews repositioning. certainly tomorrow, according to the port authority, and then it looks like newark has power to the airport and so we're waiting for an announcement over at newark. maybe with operations sometime over the course of the afternoon. laguardia is the one that really was impacted with the storm surge. i mean, the entire air si

. >> joining us now is dave barger, jetblue's ceo and president. >> always great to be here. >> before we get into the fare business and your business, what are you expecting out of this hurricane? does that change or dictate your plans? >> well, sure, it could. sandy is -- maybe it's not irene, but it's also wreaking havoc. florida looks to be out of harm's way for the most part. we'll see. >> you already had to cancel flights because of what's going on in the caribbean. >> we've done the same. obviously, let people know ahead of time. get people out of harm's way. we're prepared for next week. you assume the worst and see what happens. >> you know, between that as we watch the possible track of sandy, what happens with fuel prices, the state of the economy, the fiscal cliff, what a crazy business you're in. >> i'll tell you, bill, i think it's why i love the business so much. i mean that sincerely. there are so many variables when you look at running an airline. so not the least of which is you talk about just market caps of airlines. when you aggregate market caps, there are many in

the other is dave barger, positively brilliant, provided careful guidance on how to move the nextgen agenda forward. i'm proud to be known as a member of that committee. i was also honored to be a part of ray lahood's future aviation advisory committee where we were a fundmental development in every conversation we had no matter what the subcommittee, and prevails theme throughout all of the committee recommendations. i should be clear. i never intended to learn this much about nextgen, but in many ways, i just had to. with experts like vicki cox or paul here, i can't claim to be an expert, but i know more than i've ever hoped to about this subject, and it's no secret airplanes are at or near the bottom on performance, and those delays trickle throughout the country. we are told that one in three u.s. flights are affected by delays in the new york, new jersey, and philadelphia air pace, and 40%-50% of the national air space ground stops and ground delays occur in new york. that means right now, half of all flights in the country held at the gate or delayed on the tarmac trace delays