Phila. Fog Delays Hundreds of Flights

Jan. 31, 2006
Airline officials said that only a handful of flights managed to arrive or depart between 7 a.m. and noon and that hundreds of flights were delayed, canceled or diverted.

The dense fog that settled on the region early yesterday had lifted by midmorning, but it created havoc at Philadelphia International Airport most of the day.

Airline officials said that only a handful of flights managed to arrive or depart between 7 a.m. and noon and that hundreds of flights were delayed, canceled or diverted because of the weather.

"From 7 a.m. to noon, no aircraft landed," said US Airways spokesman Philip Gee. "We were down to 400-feet visibility, and no one can take off or land in that."

Airport officials did not keep track of the total number of flights that were off schedule, canceled or diverted, airport spokesman Mark Pesce said.

Gee said that "hundreds of flights" scheduled by US Airways were delayed and that 14 bound for Philadelphia were diverted to Baltimore, New York LaGuardia, Pittsburgh or Washington Dulles airports. Operations did not return to normal until midafternoon, he said.

Over a seven-day period, US Airways, the airport's largest carrier with about 60 percent of the passengers, operates an average of 415 large-jet and commuter flights a day at Philadelphia, with more than that number scheduled on weekdays, he said.

Southwest Airlines, the airport's second-largest carrier with 53 daily departures and about 7 percent of the passengers, canceled 11 outbound and 12 inbound flights, said spokeswoman Edna Ruano.

"From 8:30 a.m. to noon, Southwest was closed for business due to fog," Ruano said.

AirTran Airways canceled one flight to Atlanta and two to Boston, and diverted three others to Newark or Dulles airports, spokeswoman Judy Graham said.

For American Airlines, the nation's largest carrier, flights to and from Philadelphia were an hour and 40 minutes late at 9 a.m. to as much as 21/2 hours late at 11:30 a.m., spokesman Tim Smith said.

United Airlines, the No. 2 carrier nationwide, experienced departure delays of up to two hours, spokesman Jeff Green said.

Philadelphia Inquirer

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