"Cincinnati airport 'is just chaos' as many can't get out"

Saturday, December 25, 2004 

Airport 'is just chaos' as many can't get out 
By Jim Hannah and John Byczkowski
The Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer

 
HEBRON - Merry Christmas, air travelers. Welcome to Greater Cincinnati.

Complications from this winter's first snowstorm continued to cripple
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on Friday, and problems
were expected to continue through the weekend.

Stranded holiday travelers desperately tried to get home in time for
Christmas as the airport's major carriers canceled from one-fourth to
one-half of their flights because of problems caused by 9.4 inches of snow
and the severe cold that followed.

Among the problems were "literally airplanes frozen to the ground," Comair
senior vice president Don Bornhorst said, adding: "There are a lot of
complications."

Charles Brown of Washington, D.C., arrived in Cincinnati at 11 a.m.
Wednesday, but his flight to Flint, Mich., was canceled. Friday, he was
boarding a flight to Flint when a Comair employee informed passengers that
the flight couldn't leave because the flight attendant wasn't there.

"This is just chaos here," he said Friday afternoon. "Yesterday, it was a
lack of de-icing (chemicals). Today, it's lack of crew."

He was scheduled for another flight to Flint, but that flight was being held
up Friday evening, also because of a lack of crew.

The cold has become a growing problem. A water pipe froze and burst in a
tunnel far below the sprawling complex at noon, setting a fire alarm off
that caused havoc with security.

Tired travelers, some who had been stuck in the airport since Wednesday
evening, initially refused to leave the building. They didn't want to lose
their spot in line.

Worse, about 300 travelers had to be rescreened, causing the line at the
security checkpoint to snake up turned-off escalators and around three
floors.

"It's been a very tough operation for the past couple of days," Bornhorst
said. "Tough environment, tough weather and, as for passengers, we're
inconveniencing way too many of them."

Delta Air Lines and Comair operated only about 25 percent of their
Cincinnati flight schedule Thursday, and about 50 percent Friday.

Because de-icing chemicals don't work well in temperatures as cold as those
seen Friday morning, "it's a lot of chipping and shoveling," Bornhorst said.
The airlines even brought in special equipment to scrape the ice off the
ramps, he said. It normally takes 10 minutes to de-ice an airplane, but that
work was taking a half-hour Friday. "It's hard to knock off; it's very
thick."

Amy Constantine, a former Delta flight attendant, called her experience at
the airport Thursday and Friday the worst she had ever witnessed.

"I was a flight attendant for Delta for four years, and I've never seen
anything like this," said Constantine, traveling with her fiancé to her
hometown of Fort Myers, Fla. "I was really disappointed with everything. The
airport wasn't prepared. Sure, they claimed they were prepared, but they
clearly were not. How else would you run out of de-icing fluid?"

Flights were canceled Thursday when the airport ran out of the chemical,
grounding almost all planes. Tankers with a new supply of the de-icing fluid
didn't start arriving until later Thursday.

Dianne Gibb of Richmond, Ky., drove to the airport after her flight from
Lexington was canceled. She and her husband were desperately trying to reach
their daughters in San Francisco by Christmas. She had been in the Delta
ticket line for more than an hour when they had to evacuate the terminal.
She said they might have been in line another hour had a ticket agent she
described as a good Samaritan not given them preferential treatment.

It wasn't just the security check and ticketing that had long lines.
Travelers said the line for Delta's baggage claim window was more than a
two-hour wait.

Marcelo Dottori of Tallahassee, Fla., was in that line hoping to retrieve
his luggage after giving up on flying. Dottori had arrived at the airport at
5:30 p.m. Thursday and wasn't able to find a flight out in time to reach his
girlfriend in Champaign, Ill., by Christmas. So his girlfriend was making
the four-hour drive to pick him up.

"I feel lucky," said Dottori, who spent Thursday night asleep on the hard,
cold terminal floor. "I met a lot of people worse off than me. Some have
been here two and three days."

Dustin Cook, 24, of Honolulu, also had people driving hours on snow-covered
interstates to rescue him from what he called "airport hell." His family was
traveling five or six hours from a suburb of Chicago to pick him up.

"I tried everything else to get out of here," said Cook, who was huddled in
a corner beside a potted plant while playing on his laptop computer. "I
checked out the buses, taxies and rental car agencies. I had no luck. There
wasn't a ride to be found."

He said he has made the trip from Hawaii at least 20 times and never
experienced anything like this: "I've taken 15-hour bus rides from Long
Island to upper-state New York that have been more pleasant than this."

Air Force Airman Brenton Scott didn't want to spend Christmas at the
airport, either. His parents were making the drive from Milwaukee to pick up
him and his fiancée. The 20-year-old was left stranded at the airport after
a trans-Atlantic flight from England, where he is stationed.

Scott, who spent Thursday night asleep in front of luggage carousel No. 6,
was so bored by Friday afternoon that he bought a 500-piece puzzle from the
gift shop and began piecing it together on the airport floor.

Hurried travelers were stepping around him as he meticulously pieced
together what would become a picture of a cardinal perched on an icy tree
limb. His fiancée was curled next to a vending machine asleep under a red
winter coat.

"This is just the worst traveling experience, ever," Scott said as he slowly
placed one more piece in the puzzle.

For those trying to get out of Cincinnati, the priority was on those who'd
been here the longest.

"There have been people here we're now getting out that have been here since
Wednesday," Bornhorst said.

The airlines checked itineraries to see which destinations most needed
flights, and concentrated on getting passengers to other hubs, including
Delta's Atlanta hub, Continental's hubs in Cleveland and Houston and
Northwest's hub in Minneapolis.

Bornhorst was unable to say Friday what schedules would look like today. He
said the airlines hoped to be back to a normal by Monday. He thanked
passengers for their patience and airline employees for their hard work.

"We've got a lot of red eyes out there," he said.

Attached Photo:

Hundreds of travelers wait in line at the ticket window in Terminal 3 of the
airport.

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