Snow Blitz Forces Travel End Runs

Donna and Ralph Leek and Sandy and George Walter will get to the football game in Pasadena after all. But no one promised it would be easy.

The two couples, who through business connections had free tickets waiting for them in Los Angeles, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport Saturday afternoon, a bit bedraggled but their mission accomplished. After a blizzard had socked the East Thursday night and crippled air transportation, they traveled from New Jersey to Philadelphia, where they caught a 6:30 a.m. flight Saturday and made connections in Chicago and San Francisco.

One other small worry when they arrived in California: their luggage had been lost--or at least rerouted.

Nevertheless, said Donna Leek as she sat on the edge of a luggage claim carrousel, “We didn’t have to go through half as much as a lot of people did.”

They were among the many Super Bowl fans who weathered long waits and various indignities in their trek westward. All said it was worth it.

Rick Tavares, of Kingston, N.Y., was one of those on a standby list at Newark Airport. He finally got to Los Angeles about noon on Saturday, but not before flying from Newark to Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta to Houston to Dallas.

His trip took about 28 hours. “It was the only way I could get here,” he said.

He met his friend, Joe Iangarra, also of Kingston, who had a confirmed seat, about 1 1/2 hours later at the airport here. Iangarra flew from Albany to Chicago to Los Angeles. They paid $550 each for their Super Bowl tickets.

Tickets to the game apparently weren’t the only ones being scalped. Ken Bennett, of Chatham, N.J., said he saw a man at the Newark Airport trying to scalp his plane ticket as well.

The man, Bennett said, was holding his ticket and calling out, “I got it man! Who wants to go to L.A.?”

Joe Mangano wanted to.

“I was supposed to leave from the New Jersey airport at 6 p.m. Thursday,” he said, “but didn’t get off until 9 p.m. Friday night. We were at the airport all of that time. That meant spending 34 hours in a New Jersey airport! But I never thought about forgetting the whole thing. I would have walked if I had to.”

While some Giants fans were trying to get out of Newark, Daryl Plante was trying to get in. He sat for several hours in the Richmond, Va., airport Friday, watching the snow pile up and hoping he would get to Newark in time to join his family on their trip to the game.

Finally, he was told he could board the plane. He sat there for another 45 minutes, then was told to get off.

The airport was having trouble clearing the runways of snow. More than an hour passed before he was allowed to get on the plane again, and another 30 minutes before he was in the air.

Ray Simmons paid $3,400 for a 4-day trip for two to Los Angeles and the Super Bowl, but he spent one of the those days in the Newark Airport. The snow forced the cancellation of his flight and he was told the coveted seats would be on a first-come, first-served basis.

He got to the airport at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, but did not get on a plane until 9 p.m. Friday. When he got to Los Angeles, the airline told him to bypass the luggage claim, because his bags were in Chicago.

Another Giants fan had more than his luggage rerouted. Tim Humphrey, of Peekskill, N.Y., said he met a man on his Saturday morning plane out of La Guardia Airport who was forced to change his plans after his flight was canceled on Friday.

While Humphrey was able to fly into Los Angeles after only stopping in Chicago, the other man had to change planes in Chicago, fly to Kansas City, then to Denver and to Colorado Springs. There, he planned to meet a friend and drive to Pasadena.

He was hoping to arrive at the Rose Bowl an hour before kickoff.

Times staff writer Sandra Crockett contributed to this report.