Flights leave Denver, but snarl remains

DENVER – Denver’s snowed-in airport reopened Friday for the first time in two days, but the backlog of flights around the country could take all weekend to clear, and many of the nearly 5,000 holiday travelers stranded here might not make it home for Christmas.

As planes began taking off again, passengers with long-standing reservations filled most of the outbound flights. That was bad news for those waiting to rebook flights canceled during the storm.

“Unfortunately, this comes down to basic math,” said airport spokesman Chuck Cannon. “You’ve got thousands of people standing in lines, and the airlines do not have thousands of seats.”

The jam in Denver backed up flights around the country heading into the one of the busiest travel times of the year, with 9 million Americans planning to take to the skies during the nine-day Christmas-to-New Year’s period.

Army Spc. Nicholas Silva curled up on a bench Friday, put his head on his arm and hunkered down for a third night inside Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The 20-year-old based at Fort Drum, N.Y., said he hoped to board a plane home to Aurora, Colo., this evening.

“I’ve slept in worse areas, so this doesn’t bug me all that much,” said Silva, who spent last Christmas stationed in Iraq.

More than 3,000 incoming flights alone were canceled or diverted from Denver during the 45-hour shutdown. There also were delays in Atlanta because of low visibility, and in Philadelphia because of wind.

Denver International, the nation’s fifth-busiest airport, closed to all flights Wednesday when a blizzard buried the city in 2 feet of snow. An estimated 4,700 travelers camped out at the airport Wednesday night, and close to 2,000 spent a second night on the hard floors and a few cots, hoping to get a place at the front of long lines at ticket counters Friday morning.