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CNN Live At Daybreak

Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport At Virtual Standstill

Aired January 03, 2002 - 05:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: The world's busiest airport is anything but this morning. A southern snowstorm that we've been telling you about brought air travel to a virtual halt at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport.

Reporter Terry Mann of CNN affiliate WSB-TV is there right now -- Terry, we've heard that hundreds of flights were literally frozen right out on the runway or right at the gates. People were just locked down.

TERRY MANN, WSB-TV CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

About a good 250 flights canceled on Delta alone. Of course, their hub being here in Atlanta. And that is a huge disruption to service. Outside the main terminal here, things are starting to pick up this morning. But inside, hundreds, possibly thousands of passengers, spending the night at Hartsfield International Airport because of those cancellations.

And all the problems started yesterday when the snow fell. And of course in Atlanta that is unusual and they are not completely prepared for it at Hartsfield International. About 15 percent of Delta Airlines' flights being canceled to all points around the south -- Chattanooga, Charlotte, Birmingham, Mobile, everywhere. And of course with Hartsfield being such a major international airport, flights are delayed in other cities as well. Flights were canceled there.

So this snowfall in Atlanta, of course, is causing backups and delays all across the country.

And again here at Hartsfield, people just trying to make the most of it through the night, spending the night here, some of them 12 hours or more.

And I'm joined now by a fellow from Long Island, New York, who was supposed to catch a flight at 3:00 p.m. yesterday and he's still here. Mr. Harrison, Gerald Harrison, what's it been like for you all night long at Hartsfield?

GERALD HARRISON, AIR PASSENGER: Well, it's been kind of a tough evening. We were on the tarmac from 3:30 yesterday to 1:30 at night. They, the plane was in line for deicing and we understood when there were 43 planes ahead of us, which we found out about 11:00 at night. And finally the plane we were on said he didn't have enough fuel to make New York even if we did get deiced. And then we had to wait, oh, about another hour or so before he could get an opening to bring the plane back to the terminal.

And of course when we stepped off the Delta flight, there was nobody there and then we had to come back to the main building. The there was, I would say, about three city blocks long. So there were four of us here from Turk Technologies (ph) and each one grabbed a cell phone and tried to make arrangements to find a flight to get out of here.

MANN: Mr. Harrison, real quick, tell us, I noticed things started to move in there. Are you going to get a flight out this morning, do you think?

HARRISON: We have great hopes if we get the plane deiced and if we get to Charlotte, which is -- and we don't have a -- the storm doesn't follow us there, we'll get off from Charlotte, because we couldn't get a direct flight back to LaGuardia.

MANN: Well, best of luck to you and thanks for talking to us.

Of course, in Long Island they handle the snow a little bit better than we do here in Atlanta, but hopefully you'll get out of town.

Again, hundreds of flights canceled, thousands of people spending the night here and forecasters in Atlanta thought that this snowfall would have let up by now, but it continues to fall all through the night and well into the morning and that just means more cancellations and delays.

I'm Terry Mann reporting live from Hartsfield International Airport -- Carol, now back to you.

LIN: Terry, I've got to tell you, it doesn't really look that bad behind you. I don't see any accumulation. It doesn't look that international community.

MANN: Well, they have snow plows and sand trucks for the roads and around the airport and for the runways. But the problem really that creates the delays is that there are only a few deicing machines at Hartsfield International because it's just so rare for it to snow here, Carol.

LIN: And what happened to all those passengers who were, who had already taxied out onto the runways yesterday? Because we were hearing that they weren't allowed to come back to the gate area. So they had to wait it out in these planes, some of them for eight or nine hours.

MANN: That's right. And it reminds us of, many of you remember what happened up in the north a few years ago with Northwest Airlines flights being lined up in Minneapolis and Detroit. It wasn't quite that bad here yesterday. They finally got those people inside the terminal again, and that's a good thing. LIN: So they weren't able to bring the planes back to the gates?

MANN: No, because the situation out there just really deteriorated. But hopefully when the snow lets up and they can get some salt down, those flights will resume.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, Terry Mann.

MANN: You bet.

LIN: Reporting for us live at Hartsfield International Airport. You stay warm out there.

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