Delays at Hartsfield continue as storms affect Northeast

A day after snow snarled flight operations at Atlanta’s airport, storms in the northeast Monday threw a major kink into efforts to get things back to normal.

Delta Air Lines canceled many Monday flights to Philadelphia, New York, Washington and other northeast cities as the same weather system that socked Atlanta moved up the eastern seaboard, spokesman Kent Landers said.

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Jessica McGowan/jmcgowan@ajc.com

While teammate Nick Campbell (reading book) studys Sociology, baseball players from Bryant University in Rhode Island, including (from left) Brian O’Neil, Jamie Skagerlind, Connor Carignan, Matt Griswold, Dan Mello, and Tim Norton, play cards. he baseball team was in town to play Mercer University.

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“We expect to have hundreds of cancellations today,” Landers said. “It’s still snowing in the northeast.”

At 12:15 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration reported average delays of 4 hours to Newark International; 3 hours to New York-La Guardia; and 2 hours to New York-Kennedy airports. Flights to Philadelphia were delayed an average of 90 minutes, it said.

Hartsfield-Jackson’s atrium was crowded with delayed fliers draped across chairs and sitting on the floor. Bleary-eyed customers whose flights were canceled Sunday joined the Monday morning crowd in the Delta ticketing area.

On Sunday, Delta canceled 300 round-trips, most of them in or out of its Atlanta hub. AirTran canceled 130 flights.

Among those encamped in the atrium overnight: Fred Grecco, 73, of Ripley, Tenn., who was flying home from a Caribbean vacation with his wife and another couple but arrived late in Atlanta and missed a connecting flight.

Then things got worse, he said. Delta gave the couples vouchers to a hotel but a cabbie took them to the wrong one.

“The room stunk and the bathroom was moldy, with people wandering in and out,” he said. They were so concerned they called a policeman who confirmed they were in the wrong place. They decided to go back to Hartsfield-Jackson and spend the night there.

“I’m not flying anywhere anymore unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Grecco said Monday morning as his group waited for an afternoon flight. “Next time I go on vacation I’m taking a boat.”

Christy Parker, 53, had been scheduled to leave Atlanta Sunday after visiting friends, but when she got to the airport at 3 p.m. she took one look around and went back to her friend’s.

“I wasn’t going to stick around,” said Parker, who was waiting to rebook on Monday.

Both Delta and AirTran offered no-fee changes to flights to accommodate passengers affected by the weather.

Fliers were advised to check on their flights at Delta, 1-800-325-1999 and www.delta.com; AirTran, 1-800-247-8726 or 678-254-7999 and www.airtran.com; and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport at www.atlanta-airport.com.