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Controlled Chaos at Airport as Pilots Strike : United’s Grounded Customers Grumble

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Times Staff Writer

Waving three useless tickets above her flaming red hair, Ida Zaniolo stormed out of the United Airlines terminal at San Diego International Airport on Friday afternoon, fumed at the first picketing pilot she could find and stomped back to the rental car where her family awaited her.

“This is really very upsetting,” said the indignant Zaniolo. “I bought these tickets on Feb. 15 to come and see my beautiful California, my first trip here in my 52 years. They guaranteed me in Chicago, ‘Yes, when you’re there, don’t worry. We guarantee we’ll get you back.’

“Now they tell me, ‘Too bad, find your own way back,’ ” Zaniolo said. “This is our vacation. We’re supposed to be on the damn beach. Now we have to hoof it.”

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Zaniolo--along with husband, Orfeo, and daughter, Mary Ann--was one of a long line of casualties in the United Airlines pilot strike that hit San Diego at 9 p.m. Thursday. The family had flown from Chicago to San Francisco on May 10, rented a car, and set out to see “my beautiful California, my dream.” Seven days later, they finished the last leg of their West Coast Odyssey at Lindbergh Field and found themselves stranded.

“They really lied to me when I left,” Zaniolo said. “Can you believe it? I can’t get back to Chicago. And they guaranteed me. I’ve tried three other airlines, and I’m stranded. I should have stuck with American Airlines.”

The Zaniolos were not the only tourists left adrift in “America’s Finest City” on Friday. At noon, Lindbergh Field’s United terminal was a picture of controlled chaos, with lines of anxious travelers stretching out from the ticket counter, past the snack bar and baggage claim, and all the way back to car-rental booths several hundred feet away.

At noon, two lines of more than 100 waylaid wanderers were still hopeful that they could leave San Diego on schedule, but by 3 p.m., United officials announced that all Friday flights were canceled.

The airline schedules 16 flights daily into and out of San Diego International Airport, serving about 4,000 passengers between this city and San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and Seattle. However, on Friday all 16 departing flights were canceled, said Max McCormack, United’s San Diego spokesman.

“And as of today, our normal schedule is canceled through May 23,” McCormack said. “Our plan now is to operate three flights a day from San Diego to Chicago. From Chicago, we should be able to loop passengers to the East Coast. Everything’s been canceled today, but we’re still planning to fly there tomorrow.”

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Lines started forming at 5:30 a.m. Friday, McCormack said, and bedraggled passengers killed time all day at Lindbergh Field, swapping travel horror stories, spelling each other in line and shifting their weight from one foot to the other.

While her grandfather stood in line and her grandmother rested on a crowded terminal bench, 2-year-old Heather Wilde slouched in a collapsible blue stroller and busied herself by twisting the heads off of candy Gummy Bears and scowling at reporters.

“We come out here from Chicago every year,” said grandmother Phyllis Kundrat, who bought her tickets on a 27-degree-below-zero day in February. “We’re not really angry. We knew they were supposed to strike.

“And after all,” Kundrat said, tugging on her Mickey Mouse T-shirt, “What nicer place to be stranded?”

Debbie and Brad Johnson were about as worried as Kundrat. Although husband and wife were expected back at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics in Iowa City on Sunday and Monday, respectively, another day in San Diego wouldn’t hurt too much.

“We’re going back home from our honeymoon,” Debbie Johnson said.

But not all passengers were as philosophical. According to striking pilot Mark Brophy, “I had one (passenger) jump out of line and come out yelling at me,” he said, hugging his “United Pilots On Strike” sign to his brown uniform. “She said that the issues were not worth it, that we were being totally unprofessional and that she’s never going to fly United again.

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“I said, ‘Delta and Western are right over there,’ ” Brophy said. “But, actually, I’ve had about 80% support from the passengers.”

Many stranded tourists, fearful of missing obligations at home, called car rental agencies in an effort to lease cars to drive to other airports. “They came wanting cars to drive up to Los Angeles and San Francisco, but we just didn’t have enough,” said Avis agent Carol Watts. “Without a reservation, we couldn’t rent cars past 10 a.m.”

Not everyone pacing the hallways at Lindbergh Field was heading home. San Diego residents Mary Tincup and Alex Rodriguez had scheduled a restful weekend in the San Francisco Bay area, where they planned to catch at least one Oakland A’s-Detroit Tigers baseball game. Game time was 7:35 p.m. Friday, but at noon it looked doubtful that the couple would get to see the first pitch.

“This started out to be a fun weekend,” said Rodriguez, standing in line with arms crossed over baseball jersey. “If we left by car right now, we may get there by the seventh-inning stretch. But geeze, maybe we’ll just have to stay home and watch the Pads.”

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