Holiday travel 2008: How stranded airline passengers coped
During the holiday rush this year, travelers endured flight delays and cancelations from coast to coast. Problems were blamed on unprecedented storms in places such as Seattle and Portland, Ore., big snowfall in the East and high winds in San Francisco. Stranded travelers spent the night at airports and tried to get to their destinations by Christmas -- some of them making it, some of them not. Here’s how people coped with the holiday travel mess.
An
A stranded traveler finds some floor space to sleep on at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Dec. 22. (Stephen Brashear / Getty Images)
Thomas McMullen and wife Katie Patterson of
Tom and Kristina Waltz of Vancouver, Wash., play cards with their daughters, Jessica, left, and Samantha, on the lower level of Chicago’s
U.S. Airways ticketing agent Elizabeth Miles shows a bit of holiday cheer while helping customers at LAX in Los Angeles, where many incoming flights were delayed and caused outbound passengers to wait for hours and sometimes days to depart. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
A passenger at an
Delayed travelers queue up at San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 1 on Dec. 22. (Mark Costantini / Associated Press)
Adam Seymour, foreground, trying to fly from Seattle to Oakland, catches up on his reading while waiting with other passengers on Dec. 22 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. (Joshua Trujillo / Associated Press)