Tue, Dec 23, 2008
Winter Storms Pound US, Snag Flights
From
ice storms in the Pacific Northwest, to blizzard conditions over
the Upper Midwest and the usual winter mix in the Northeast...
it looks to be a truly lousy holiday travel season throughout much
of the United States.
Portland International Airport (PDX) saw heavy flight
cancellations throughout Sunday and Monday, as icy runways snagged
operations at that airport and at Seattle-Tacoma International
(SEA), 112 nautical miles north. Alaska Airlines and its Horizon
subsidiary only flew about 1/3 their usual Monday schedules from
both airports, reports The Seattle Times, but expected to have
things largely sorted out by Tuesday.
Residents of Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN are more accustomed to
such conditions... but that came as little comfort to Bill Blaegen,
who was stranded at MSP when his flight to Seattle was
cancelled.
"The problem is that Minnesota can handle the weather, so our
airport is running fine, but Seattle, they get two inches of snow
and the place shuts down," Blaegen told KMSP-9.
Actually, some areas of Seattle saw close to 14" of snow... and
the ripple effect from the wintry blast over Oregon and
Washington -- as well as a line of snowstorms over eastern Nebraska
and western Iowa, and a developing system over Arizona and New
Mexico -- have conspired to delay numerous flights throughout the
country over the past 72 hours, throwing a wrench in the travel
plans of many holiday fliers.
Even those areas not seeing wintry precipitation are dealing
with record low temperatures, and high winds.
If there's some good news to be had from this mess, it's that
airlines across the country have waived rebooking charges for
passengers stranded by storms. So, there's that...
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