Delta flight from Puerto Rico threads needle around Hurricane Irma

ATLANTA — A Delta Air Lines flight out of San Juan, Puerto Rico weaved its way through a swath of calm air around Hurricane Irma to take passengers to New York on Wednesday afternoon.

The plane took off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport Wednesday morning bound for San Juan.

The 180-seat Boeing 737-900 landed in San Juan without incident, according to Delta spokesman Michael Thomas. The winds were below the operating limits for the 737-900 to safely operate, according to Thomas.

The flight quickly unloaded passengers and took on a new planeful of passengers to take to New York.

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It was Delta’s last scheduled flight from San Juan on Wednesday.

The airline’s meteorologists “took a hard look at the weather data and the track of the storm and worked with the flight crew and dispatcher to agree it was safe to operate the flight,” according to Delta’s vice president of operations Erik Snell. He added that flight and ground crews “were incredible in their effort to turn the aircraft quickly and safely so the flight could depart well before the hurricane threat.”

Atlanta-based Delta plans to delay its flights this evening in San Juan, then assess facilities after the storm passes to determine when it can restart flights.

Here's a series of tweets by self-proclaimed aviation geek Jason Rabinowitz watching the flight into the storm from afar.

Cox Media Group