SEATTLE — Port of Seattle officials expect roughly 1 million travelers to pass through Sea-Tac Airport in the next two weeks.
While the holiday rush is standard, the snow that fell around the Puget Sound region on Sunday is not.
According to Flight Aware, by 5 p.m. on Sunday, there were 350 delays and 265 cancellations out of SEA airport.
As ice was removed from planes and snow was removed from runways, taxiways and ramp areas, flyers found themselves facing long delays.
A passenger on an Alaska Airlines flight to San Diego reported to us his flight was scheduled to leave Seattle at 9:15 a.m., but after taxiing for several hours, his plane didn’t depart until 2 p.m.
Scott Anderson, his flight to Detroit was cancelled, described the “domino effect” SEA talked about. “They just kept saying delayed, delayed, delayed because at first there’s no gates because it’s a finite resource. There’s contention for that. Then they got a gate, they moved our boarding down to a different gate. And then they ran out of pilots.”
Marek Hajdukovich had his flight cancelled at SEA while trying to get to Chicago. He’s traveling with Dimond High School in Anchorage and they’re heading to a basketball tournament. Tip-off is 2 p.m. in Chicago and their flight doesn’t leave SEA until 10 a.m. Tuesday and with time zone changes, it’s pretty much impossible they’ll make it for their game - which they traveled from Alaska for.
“So, we were told that we have to stay in the airport for like 28 hours. But we’re going to try to get a hotel and see where we go from there,” Hajdukovich said.
A spokesperson for the Port of Seattle said there were no delays at TSA checkpoints, but people should anticipate delays and cancellations with their airlines.
Adding to headaches, parking is limited as the top floor of the garage at SEA is closed due to snow.
As of Monday morning at 7:30 a.m., the cancellations and delays continued at SEA, with more than 150 flights canceled and more than 60 flights delayed, according to FlightAware.
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