Hundreds of holiday travelers spent the night in America’s second busiest airport and some of them faced the prospect of doing it again on Christmas Eve as airports across America recovered from a barrage of snow and ice storms
About 500 travelers had to spend the night at Chicago’s O’Hare International, the nation’s second busiest airport, after stormy weather canceled more than 500 flights Tuesday, said Chicago Aviation Department spokeswoman Karen Pride. More than 100 flights were canceled at O’Hare on Wednesday. City of Chicago Aviation Department spokesman Greg Cunningham said airlines at O’Hare requested 75 cots for passengers on Wednesday night.
Complicating matters at O’Hare, an American Airlines plane hit an icy patch while turning onto a runway and slid sideways into the grass. There were no injuries in the Wednesday evening incident, and 54 passengers were to be put on other flights leaving the same night. The New York metro area’s Kennedy and Newark airports reported arrival delays of up to 3 hours, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported.
The weather service posted winter storm warnings and advisories for large parts of the West, plus parts of the Midwest and the Northeast. Despite more snow falling Wednesday in the Seattle area, operations at Sea-Tac Airport were back to normal Wednesday, said spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt. She said the last of thousands of passengers who were stranded by weekend cancellations were gone by Tuesday, and the only flight cancellations were caused by delays or cancellations at other airports.
