Delta Air Lines was expected to resume flights between Atlanta and the Northeast Monday morning as airports shut down by Irene reopen.
But the travel grid along the Eastern seaboard will stay disrupted for days.
The hurricane/tropical storm shut down the world's busiest flight corridor, along with Amtrak lines and Greyhound bus routes, for a whole weekend. With an estimated 11,000 flights canceled nationwide since Friday, travelers are still being squeezed into the pipeline, even as Philadelphia and Washington D.C.-area airports came back on line Sunday.
New York's three airports remained closed, but the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was expected to reopen them Monday, considered key to returning nationwide flight schedules to normal.
Early Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration's website indicated that Newark and John F. Kennedy airports were expected to reopen at 6 a.m., followed at 7 a.m. by LaGuardia.
“It looks like [Monday] we’ll be back to flying again,” AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said Sunday. “I won’t say getting back to normal, though, because it takes a few days to get back to normal after something like this.”
FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said there will be a gradual buildup of flights over the next few days, but getting the system back at full speed could be hampered if some airports are still recovering. The one in Teterboro, N.J., for example, is flooded.
However, a spokesman for Delta Air Lines, the largest carrier serving Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, said service should go back to normal starting Monday, after the major airports reopen.
"We're geared for a full schedule resumption in (New York City) and the northeast tomorrow after noon," spokesman Morgan Durrant said in an e-mail.
After nixing another 1,100 flights Sunday headed for the Eastern Seaboard, Delta expects to have scraped a total 2,200 flights, including connections, between Saturday and Monday, representing 13 percent of all its scheduled flights in that period. AirTran, whose operations hub is out of Hartsfield-Jackson, has canceled a total 336.
Meanwhile, AirTran added seven flights Sunday and another for Monday in an an effort to start moving passengers stuck in hotel rooms and airport lobbies to cities where they’ll have a shot at finding flights home, Graham-Weaver said. Some of the added Sunday flights were from Atlanta to Newport News, Baltimore, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Montego Bay, Jamaica. The new Monday flight is from Orlando to West Palm Beach, Fla.
A more certain, though slower, option for northbound travelers appears to be Greyhound, which canceled service generally from Richmond northward. A spokeswoman said those buses should start running again Monday morning, the first buses rolling into New York City at mid-day.
Spokespersons for Amtrak did not immediately return calls, but a statement on the rail service's website said crews were making repairs after reports of flooding, debris on tracks and power outages. At least four New York linkages were canceled for Monday, with passengers getting refunds. Some lines between Raleigh and Charlotte are operating.
An Amtrak customer service representative said the first available booking from Atlanta to New York City wasn't until Friday. The best she could do, she said, was a train to Charlotte on Wednesday. More cancellations are expected, the website statement said.
Some travelers have been stymied mid-trip while trying to reach the Northeast, and plenty have wound up in Atlanta, a major connection center.
Martin Ortiz was among those stranded in Atlanta Sunday night.
Ortiz, his daughter and two nieces arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport at 5:30 p.m. Sunday from Oaxaca, Mexico, on their way to visit family in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
With all Sunday flights to New York canceled, Ortiz and his family members camped out Sunday night in the Hartsfield atrium.
“It’s fine,” Ortiz said of the overnight accommodations. “It’s a little cold in here.”
He said that “hopefully,” they would be able to get on a 9:30 a.m. flight to LaGuardia airport in New York.
A succession of Army soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for two weeks’ leave were being put up in hotels, at the government's expense, until they could get flights out on Monday. The delays in getting home to family, after four to five days of constant travel, had many of them visibly exasperated.
Pfc. Brandon Johnpier, 18, of the 82nd Airborne Division, needed to fly on to Boston to reach his hometown of Lowell, Mass, but the flight was canceled. He’s getting married Sept. 4 before shipping back to Iraq.
He found an early Monday flight to Raleigh, N.C., where he'll have a five-hour layover before going on to Boston.
Another stuck traveler, Xavier Idrovo, had no time to wait for flights to get him home to Burlington, N.J. Coming off a 10-day family vacation to Ecuador, he said he needed to be back at work Monday morning, having recently started a new job as information technology manager for a law firm.
With their Delta flight to Philadelphia canceled, he and his wife and children split up so they could all get flights back into the continental United States. He landed in Atlanta at 7 a.m. Sunday, while his wife, son and daughter wound up in Miami. The airlines told him they'd have to wait until Tuesday for a flight to Philadelphia, he said.
With a Panama hat tipped over his eyes, he dozed in an easy chair, his legs propped on his suitcase. He expected his family to land in Atlanta at 1 p.m., then they would drive a rental car the rest of the trip. The car cost $500.
“I don’t know how much money I lost in this,” Idrovo said. “I just want to get home.”
Staff writer Mike Morris and photographer John Spink contributed to this article.
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