Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines canceled more than 370 flights Saturday, and long lines of travelers stretched through Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport’s domestic terminal and baggage claim areas.
The disruptions were the fallout of Delta’s struggles during a Friday winter storm at its Atlanta hub that continued into a second day.
Wait times reached more than 1.5 hours for security screening on Saturday, with crowds of travelers waiting in lines for security checkpoints and to check bags causing confusion in the terminal.
Some travelers said they had been waiting in line for three hours, and had missed their flights.
The long lines at the domestic terminal were in part because some security checkpoints remained closed Saturday morning, including the Terminal North checkpoint. Roughly a third of workers scheduled to staff security checkpoints Saturday morning didn’t come to work, according to Transportation Security Administration spokesman Mark Howell.
In some areas of Terminal South, where Delta has its check-in counters, lines extended outside the doors Saturday morning.
Delta warned travelers to get to Hartsfield-Jackson three hours before their flights for “longer-than-usual security wait times.”
Even wait times for members of the TSA PreCheck trusted traveler program reached more than an hour long at the domestic terminal Saturday morning.
At the international terminal, lines for the security checkpoint stretched beyond the queueing area and down the terminal past ticket counters, with waits roughly an hour long at midday.
Credit: Emma Hurt
Credit: Emma Hurt
Compounding the chaos has been unreliable data service and Wi-Fi in both domestic and international terminals, apparently overloaded by the crowds.
Long lines and heavy congestion are also expected Sunday at Hartsfield-Jackson, according to the TSA.
The flight cancellations and lengthy wait times mean a second day of travelers being unable to get to their destinations or return home after trips, with some sleeping at airports.
The Friday storm disruptions were compounded by an aborted takeoff of a Delta plane with passengers evacuating via emergency slides onto a snowy runway Friday morning.
The runway was temporarily closed after the evacuation, while other runways amid the snowstorm were not yet cleared and deiced for use. As a result, there were no usable runways and no takeoffs and landings at the world’s busiest airport for more than two hours on Friday.
Some flights had to be diverted during the shutdown of flights at Hartsfield-Jackson. Delta said “several bands of sleet and freezing rain throughout the day and early into the evening also prompted diversions and a temporary pause in aircraft deicing, further challenging our recovery.”
While Delta had canceled fewer than 200 flights including Delta Connection flights for Friday in advance of the storm, that grew into more than 1,160 flight cancellations by the end of the day, according to FlightAware.com.
Including other airlines’ flight cancellations, there were more than 1,500 flights canceled at Hartsfield-Jackson on Friday, including more than 120 Southwest Airlines cancellations, the FlightAware data show. Southwest is the second-largest carrier at Hartsfield-Jackson.
Delta said its employees were “working to recover the airline heading into Saturday.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar
Credit: Arvin Temkar
On Saturday at Hartsfield-Jackson, the Delta cancellations across its route network include more than 270 cancellations of departures or arrivals, amounting to more than 20% of its flight schedule in Atlanta, according to FlightAware.
Some morning flights have were canceled because flight crews and planes were out of place after the storm flight cancellations. Delta said it expects its operations to recover Saturday “as weather conditions improve.”
Frontier, Spirit, American and Southwest also canceled a portion of their flights in Atlanta for Saturday.
While many people were trapped in security lines and missed their flights, the scene inside the concourses on Saturday afternoon was calm in comparison. While there were some lines to speak to Delta agents, the congestion appeared to remain on the other side of security around 1:30 p.m.
Combined with cancellations on Delta and other carriers, there are more than 340 flights canceled at Hartsfield-Jackson for Saturday, according to FlightAware.
Credit: Emma hurt
Credit: Emma hurt
With tens of thousands of people trying to fly out after canceled flights Friday on top of regular weekend traffic, many travelers are facing long lines at security checkpoints and airline customer service counters.
Hartsfield-Jackson warned travelers to “be prepared for possible delays.”
