Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines, canceled all 1,100 flights yesterday after computer problems knocked out its system for managing flight crew assignments.
Nick Miller, a spokesman for Comair at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, said the cancellations affected 30,000 travelers in 118 cities. He said the airline plans to have limited flights today.
The effects of USAirways' and Comair's problems were felt at other East Coast airports. At Reagan National Airport, a steady stream of passengers looked through rows of unclaimed bags.
Jose Hidalgo, of Woodbridge, was among those looking for missing luggage. He said his sister-in-law had been stuck on a runway in the Dominican Republic for hours on Friday, waiting to take off for Philadelphia. When she finally got there, she was stranded in the airport overnight before arriving, luggage-less, in Washington yesterday.
Hidalgo said that USAirways had no information on the missing bags and that he and his sister-in-law were headed home empty-handed. "Besides that," he said, "everything is fine. It's Christmas, after all."
Like USAirways, Comair said its problems were triggered by snowstorms that forced flight delays and cancellations in the Midwest on Thursday and Friday.
"There was a cumulative effect with the canceled flights and trying to get crew assigned that caused the system to be overwhelmed," the Associated Press quoted Miller, the Comair spokesman, as saying. "It just stopped operating."
Guy and Claire Lobuono, of Colerain Township near Cincinnati, spent five hours standing in a Comair ticket line at the Cincinnati airport Thursday, only to find out their flight was canceled. Their flight was canceled again Friday, and they spent Christmas Eve at an airport hotel eating potato chips from a vending machine because no restaurants were open, the AP reported.
"I know it's bad weather, but I just think it's disorganized," Lobuono said gloomily, as his wife stood in line to check on other options.
Ted Bushelman, director of communications for the airport, said in a telephone interview that he was told by the airlines that as many as 2,000 people were stranded there on Christmas Eve after 16 inches of snow blanketed the region. By last night, however, most had departed on other flights. "The airport is practically empty now," he said.
Staff writers Sara Kehaulani Goo and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.
