SEATAC, Wash. — Operations at SEA Airport were moving smoother on Sunday compared to Saturday night when several flights had to be delayed due to thunderstorms.
"This is the first time I've seen anything like this in my 18 years that has been this long of a delay for fueling," said Perry Cooper, a SEA Airport spokesperson. "Whenever lightning is within five miles of the airport we shut down all fueling activities going on in the airfield for safety, obviously we don't want anything to spark up to cause any further problems."
Cooper said the airport’s thunderstorm protocol is essentially a fueling stoppage. It normally lasts about 20 or 30 minutes, as a storm passes. But Saturday was a different story.
"Unusually we had two hours’ worth of that fueling alert and essentially that stopped all activity from a fueling standpoint from all potential aircrafts at gates to depart," Cooper said.
This resulted in 29 inbound flights being impacted by an hour or more because other flights set to depart were held at the gate, waiting to be fueled. The airport opened its "emergency space" for passengers. It allows airlines to have additional space to check-in flyers, beside the main terminal.
“We got a space down on the first floor of our garage that's normally for check-ins for cruise ships, bussing and shuttling, that kind of stuff,” Cooper said. “So, we actually open up that space for them."
Cooper said plenty of flights came in and out of the airport during this thunderstorm protocol because they didn't need to fuel up. He said the last impacted flight came in around 3 a.m. Sunday.
Airport officials said Alaska Airlines was the most impacted airline. They said a big reason behind that is because many flights out of SEA are Alaska Airlines flights.
A spokesperson with Alaska emailed KING 5 a statement saying:
“For the safety of employees and guests due to severe weather, the FAA imposed a ground stop at SeaTac last night. We apologize to our guests who were impacted. Once the ground stop was lifted, we began working to re-accommodate those guests that experienced flight disruptions.”