Passengers Frozen Out With ATRs Grounded : Airlines: Turboprops are idled by FAA order, snarling flight schedules as Christmas travel season starts. American Eagle commuters are hardest hit.

Until last week they were the workhorses of Midwestern commuter commerce, but now they are lined two abreast against the piercing winter wind on the O’Hare International Airport tarmac, as useless and immobilized as dinosaur skeletons.

Standing idle amid runway ice patches caused by a weekend cold snap are nearly all of the American Eagle commuter fleet of 53 European-built ATR turboprop planes, grounded by Friday’s government order banning their use when icy weather is present or forecast.

The Federal Aviation Administration order, which came in the wake of an October ATR-72 crash in Indiana that killed all 68 people aboard, has snarled the nation’s air travel system at the most inconvenient possible time--the start of the Christmas travel season.

On Saturday, thousands of passengers heading through airports in the Midwest and East scrambled to find alternative flights or other forms of transportation to take the place of flights by ATR-72 and ATR-42 aircraft. Despite swiftly hatched plans to shift many of the airline industry’s 156 ATR planes to airports in the South, up to 15% of the seats on regional air carriers may be jeopardized for another month, airline officials said.

“It’s turning the apple cart upside down,” said Mary Frances Fagan, a spokeswoman for American Eagle, American Airlines’ commuter subsidiary, which runs a third of the nation’s ATR aircraft and was hardest hit by the groundings.

American Eagle announced Saturday that all its ATR aircraft at O’Hare would remain idle at least until Thursday while smaller, Swedish-built turboprops are transferred north to take their place. Similar plans were made by Continental Express airline to send its 30 ATR planes based in Newark, N.J., to airports in Florida.

American Eagle officials also said Saturday that jet routes would start today between O’Hare and larger airports in Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Grand Rapids, Mich., but that those hubs will now have fewer daily flights than they had before the FAA order.

The rows of ATR aircraft on the Chicago tarmac and continuing cancellations (on Saturday, all of American Eagle’s 298 ATR flights to and from O’Hare were canceled) testified to the chaos that the FAA order is bringing to holiday travelers and to business commuters who once used the ATR planes as casually as commuter trains.

Staring at the motionless planes from a window at O’Hare’s deserted American Eagle terminal, stranded passenger Jay Bick, 24, decided that even a long night alone in the airport was worth his safety.

“So I lose a few hours of sleep,” he said as he slumped into a seat, gazed up at a Chicago Bulls basketball game on television and hiked the volume on the Vince Gill tape in his Walkman. “If this saves people’s lives, I’m all for it.”

Lines were long at American Eagle gates after the order was issued Friday, but by Saturday the shutdown had left the long terminal almost deserted. Most passengers were sorting out their travel plans by telephone, Fagan said. A computer line to assist them during the coming week would be operational by this afternoon, she added.

Many American Eagle passengers were being routed on other carriers. The airline is also renting cars for passengers and, for a few, buying bus tickets, Fagan said.

Those caught between cities at night were forced to make quick decisions--whether to rush off on a dizzying round of connecting flights on tiny commuter planes, grab a rental car or bus ticket, or simply hole up in a hotel until more flights were available.

Returning from a business trip in Thunder Bay, Canada, Dan Rowley, 23, and John Perry, 40, stood dazed at an American Eagle gate, trying to make up their minds.

“I saw all the ATRs sitting there as our plane was taxiing in, but I didn’t realize one of them was mine,” Rowley said. “I knew about the crash and all, but I wasn’t worried about flying in (the ATR planes). I figured lightning doesn’t strike twice, right?”

The two Indianapolis printers returning from a sales trip decided to stay in a hotel overnight at the airline’s expense.

“I guess (the FAA decision) was the right thing to do,” Perry said. “I just wish they’d pick another time. I mean, Christmas is coming up.”

The FAA ordered that the ATR aircraft must remain grounded when temperatures are below 40 and moisture is visible in the air.

The move came in response to federal tests conducted on the planes in the wake of the Oct. 31 crash of an ATR-72 turboprop into a farm field near Roselawn, Ind. Tests found that ice on the wings has the potential to cause severe rolling similar to the midair catastrophe that sent Flight 4184 plunging to the ground as it approached a landing at O’Hare six weeks ago.

American Eagle on Saturday began acting on plans to fly its O’Hare fleet of ATR planes to Dallas and other Southern hubs and replace them with weather-ready Saab 340 turboprops. At some larger airfields, such as Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport, the ATR aircraft will be replaced by Boeing 727 jets.

Even with the new planes arriving, some routes are likely to be scratched. At Milwaukee, only four outbound 727 flights will replace the 11 daily ATR routes that funneled flights into O’Hare.

“It definitely cuts down on people’s choices,” said Mike Piontek, a control-center staffer at Milwaukee’s airport.

The northward moves of the Saab 340 aircraft will have an opposite--but equally confusing--impact. The Saabs seat only 36 passengers and will have to fly two routes to ferry nearly the same number of passengers as an ATR-72.

“Clearly the route system is going to take a lot of reworking,” said American Eagle spokesman Bill Elliot.

Pilots also expect to feel the brunt of the shifts. Some trained to fly on ATR aircraft expect to have to relocate to the South. Several pilots have refused to fly ATR planes in cold weather since the Indiana crash.

One American Eagle pilot trudging into the Chicago terminal said he “agreed with the ATR decision” but added that after flying the planes for nine years, “I’ve never had a problem with them--icy weather or not.”

Nearby, Bick, settling in for the night, said that if there had been no FAA grounding order he would have taken the plane without a second thought.

“When I told my friends at work I was taking an ATR they said: ‘We’ll see you next week--we hope.’ Looks like they were right, but not the way they thought.”

Times staff writer Judy Pasternak contributed to this story.