While all American Airlines flights to the east coast are canceled, the airline is operating a normal service to other parts of the country.

United Airlines grounded roughly 3,700 flights between Sunday and Wednesday, and Delta said all flights from Washington to Boston, and out of New York and Philadelphia, were canceled.

Both companies are allowing some customers to change their flight plans without paying any fees due to the storm.

So how long will it take for airlines to get stranded passengers to their destinations once the hurricane subsides? Not long, according to CNN's Richard Quest, who said the problem should start being resolved from Wednesday.

Quest said: "All the airlines have exceptionally sophisticated recovery programs. What they do is they don't make the flight to the first place. They don't send the aircraft into the bad areas, so they don't get stranded. So they're now already starting to work out flights for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. You write off Monday and Tuesday, then you start to rebuild the schedule."

"After the [Icelandic volcanic] ash cloud two years ago, airlines were able to restore the schedule quite quickly, simply because people canceled their flights [and didn't rebook]. And that's what the airlines are banking on.

"I'm guessing by the weekend everyone's got where they need to be."