Weather Forces Travelers To Camp At South Florida Airports
MIAMI (CBS4) - Another day of wicked weather up north means another day of flight cancellations at Miami and Ft. Lauderdale's airports.
At Miami International Airport, spokesman Marc Henderson said they had 70 arrival and departure cancellations from airports in New York, Boston, Chicago, Hartford, Newark, Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth and Cincinnati.
At Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, there were 89 cancellations in total.
Bob and Becky Barber settled in for a long night at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport Wednesday. They were supposed to return to Grand Rapids on Wednesday morning but their flight was canceled. The couple made the best of it and hopped on a transit bus to spend a day at the beach while their friends back home braved 11 degree temperatures and more than a foot of snow.
Bob Barber said he'd love to stay in South Florida.
"If I could get a job that'd be perfect," he joked.
The Barber's planned to spend the evening playing cards and snacking on cookies and chips. They hoped their flight to Michigan would be able to take off Thursday evening.
Airport spokesman Gregory Meyer said 33 flights to airports in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Hartford, Houston, Kansas City, Long Island, Louisville, Milwaukee, Newark, New York JFK and La Guardia, Providence, Washington DCA, and White Plains were canceled.
The remaining 56 cancellations were for arriving flights from Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago Midway and O'Hare, Cleveland, Dallas/Ft Worth, Detroit, Hartford, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Long Island, Milwaukee, Newark, Newburgh, New York JFK and La Guardia, Providence, Washington Dulles, and White Plains.
Even more remarkable, according to Meyer was that they have more than three dozen commercial jets parked on every available remote parking area on the airfield because their flights had been cancelled.
"It's the first time in the airport's history that anyone within the Aviation Department can recall that we had this many aircraft on the grounds. Thirty eight is very unusual. I'm talking about going back 25 years or more. We've never seen anything quite like this," said Meyer.
Meyer said since this is the seventh major storm to affect the Midwest and Northeast in almost as many weeks, they are not seeing a large number of stranded passengers waiting at the airport to get out on the next available flight. He said a majority of passengers are waiting for conditions to improve before arriving at the airport. But there are some exceptions. Two couples who had returned from a ten day cruise on Tuesday told CBS4's Tiffani Helberg that they were hoping for the best so they could get home to Indianapolis.
"We made hotel reservations, went all over the city yesterday and down on the canal in taxi boats and everything. So here we are today trying to get out," said one stranded passenger.
The wintry blizzard roaring across a third of the country has forced many airports to shut down flight operations.
Chicago received up to 17 inches of snow with more still possible, Missouri as much as 1 1/2 feet, more than a foot dropped on northern Indiana and Oklahoma has much as a foot. In the Northeast, spots in northern New York had already gotten more than a foot of snow. New York City was expected to get up to three-quarters of an inch of ice by midday before the mix of sleet and freezing rain warms up to rain.
Thousands of flights have been canceled across the nation. Flights out of and in to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport -- a major U.S. hub -- won't be possible at all until Thursday. The decision by O'Hare-based airlines to cancel all their flights for a day and a half was certain to have ripple effects at other U.S. airports, said transportation expert Joseph Schwieterman.
"Effectively shutting down America's most important aviation hub hits the system immeasurably hard," he said about O'Hare. He said other U.S. airports not even in the path of the storm should start to see delays themselves right away as a result.
The city's smaller airport, Midway International, hoped to resume flights Wednesday afternoon.
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