SEATTLE — One day after a winter storm shuttered over 700 flights out of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, almost 200 flights are canceled as of early Saturday afternoon.
The inclement weather has canceled 205 flights as of 4:40 p.m. and another 316 flights have been delayed, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website.
“We've been on the phone for about two and half hours while we've been here so we figured whichever comes soon. I’m not holding my breath, we’ll get there eventually,” said Ehren Cheng, whose flight to Austin was canceled.
Cancellations are forcing others to change their plans. Ty and Gabrielle Scholes were supposed to be in South Texas spending the holiday with the entire family post-pandemic since her grandfather passed.
“Very sad. There’s been lots of tears, I had high expectations and just feeling very let down. A lot of tearful phone calls but we’re trying to make the best of it,” said Gabrielle Scholes.
There also are reports of long call wait times and issues with re-booking online.
“Since they took down the callback option, hold time has been 8-plus hours consistently and it’s been a nightmare,” said Scholes.
“We’re both professionals and this is the only time a year we get off to see our families and other than that we’re grinding so it’s kind of now or never so even if its two days we want to get down there,” said Gabrielle Scholes.
While the Scholeses wait for a new flight, they plan to have Christmas dinner with other friends with canceled flights.
“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade and we're happy that we have friends that we can still spend time with,” said Ty Scholes.
Alaska Airlines is reminding customers its flexible travel waiver has been extended until January 7th, 2023.
These numbers represent a steep decline from Friday's cancellations.
Around 700 flights were canceled by 8 p.m. Friday and more than 200 flights were delayed. Sea-Tac ran limited operations with one runway open most of the day following a full ground stop. A second runway opened later in the day on Friday.
There were 11 arrivals and 11 departures from the airport by 1 p.m., airport officials said, during what was anticipated to be one of the biggest travel periods of the year.
Almost all of western Washington was under a Winter Storm Warning until Friday evening. The bulk of the Puget Sound area was under the warning until 7 p.m. on Friday, while Skagit, Whatcom and San Juan counties will be under the warning until 2 a.m. Saturday.
Overnight all three runways were closed at Sea-Tac, which airport officials called "unprecedented." Just before 7 a.m., one of the runways became operational.
A second runway was operational by approximately 4:30 p.m.
A Sea-Tac spokesperson said they've only seen 146 departures and arrivals on since 12 a.m. on Friday. On Wednesday they saw 664 and saw 702 on Thursday during the same time period.
Nearly 1 million people are expected to travel through Sea-Tac for the holidays from Dec. 16 to Jan. 3.
Myrtle Lewis-Mosby and her family battled canceled and delayed flights flying from Anchorage, Alaska to Houston.
“We’ve been planning this for several months, my daughter from college is meeting us in Houston so everything is coordinated. This is going to put a monkey wrench in my plans,” said Lewis-Mosby.
Lewis-Mosby and her family are trying to make it on a two-week cruise, and hoping to take off.
“If they delay any other flight or the flight tonight or cancel it we’re going to just miss it and I'm going to have issues,” said Lewis-Mosby.
Despite the bumps in the journey, Lewis-Mosby said once they make it, it will be worth it.
“All these roadblocks and all these delays there must be something phenomenal waiting for us so we’re just going to ride with it,” said Lewis-Mosby.
Passengers report rebooking a flight is not an easy task.
“Every solution we went to we couldn't reach anyone. I stayed on hold for 8 hours actually before getting disconnected so that wasn't fun,” said Trisha Quigley, who’s flight was canceled.
Quigley supposed to be flying to meet family in Mexico Friday morning, the next flight she can get on is in five days.
“It's super frustrating because there’s nothing they can do. There’s nothing we can do,” Quigley said.
The unprecedented amount of travelers trying to re-book prompting Alaska Airlines to ask Seattle-area residents with canceled flights to go home and their automatic re-booking system will put them on another flight.
Baggage issues
Thursday was the busiest day expected at the airport this week. Not only were there a lot of people, but there are also a lot of bags. Throughout the morning and into early afternoon Thursday, the airport had such a high number of people checking bags that it could not handle the volume and the system got overwhelmed.
"I mean this is absolute craziness, this is insanity,” said passenger Alesha Meanor, who was in line to get her bags checked to fly to Arizona.
She was shocked to see how long the ticketing lines were, as the counters were overloaded with bags.
"It’s like even if you can maybe catch your plane by the grace of time, your bag probably won't make it,” said Meanor.
That is exactly what happened to passenger Anali Weatherhead, who was headed to Cabo.
“We saw that there are 50-60, maybe even 100, luggage in front of the ticket agents,” said Weatherhead about her experience at the ticket counter.
She said the agent told her she should not expect her bags in Cabo on Thursday.
"She assured us that they would take care of us and that they would FedEx them from wherever they were, to wherever we were,” said Weatherhead.
Sea-Tac airport spokesperson Perry Cooper the issue spurred from the high volume of checked bags. He said they could not get bags loaded onto planes quickly enough, which caused bags to pile up on the carousel between ticketing and the planes. They halted the ticket counter agents from putting luggage onto the carousel on the north end of the airport. Luggage had to be taken by cart to other areas.
"We had to actually stop the input from those ticket counters,” said Cooper. “Then we call portage, we would portage those bags to another input location, so we can get those into a space that is not as jammed up."
Cooper said the airport was trying to make a plan to prevent this from happening Friday, by working with the airlines. Cooper said if you can avoid checking bags, you can get through much faster when these issues happen. As of Thursday evening, the luggage issue had been solved as they were back to a more average volume of bags.
Security breach shuts down checkpoints
A minor security breach at Sea-Tac Airport shut down security checkpoints for about 15 minutes on Thursday morning, causing lines to back up into the parking garage.
Sea-Tac officials said the breach was not an actual threat and cleared very quickly but the combination of the increased number of holiday travelers and having to close checkpoints caused the backup. Officials said an "unticketed passenger" tried to go through the security checkpoint. Wait times were about 60 minutes.
Officials said backups were caused by a high number of people checking bags. They said the congestion Thursday morning was bad enough that some travelers' bags didn't make it onto planes.
Holiday travel is returning to pre-pandemic levels while winter weather hits areas across the country.
Sea-Tac and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have beefed up staffing to try and cut down on wait times.
Sea-Tac is encouraging travelers to plan other options than driving and parking at the airport when possible, like using ride shares, the light rail, or getting dropped off.
SEA Spot Saver can save you time with security lines as well.
The airport also suggests trying to avoid using departure and arrival drives during busy hours.
“Switch it up to speed it up," airport spokesperson Perry Cooper said. "In the morning when everybody is going to the departure drive use the arrivals drive and, in the evening, when most people are using the arrivals, drive use the departure drive. It’s only one level difference,”
Joey Jennings is a yoga instructor flying from Sea-Tac to south Florida to see family for the holidays.
“Get here early - early enough so you can orient yourself in the airport, take some deep breaths, enjoy your family and remember (that) the season is about being kind to people and not about yelling at somebody at the airport,” Jennings said.
With more people flying, finding affordable flights could get trickier in the new year.
Travel expert, Steve Danishek told KING 5 to book early and think outside the box for 2023.
“If you can book ahead, fine," Danishek said. "Look at different days of the week and try to fly early in the day if you can because those are the flights that generally are the least delayed. Maybe use a different airport, in Seattle, we have up north, you can go to Paine Field so check that out.”
Danishek said most airlines have fixed staffing problems seen over the summer. So cancelations based on staffing are no longer a problem like they were.
The big problem with cancelations and delays is now weather-related.