Government Will Probe Holiday Air Travel Snarls

HEBRON, Ky. – Luggage was stacked in rows longer than a football field yesterday as airlines struggled to recover from the delays and mix-ups caused by regional carrier Comair’s system wide cancellations during the holiday weekend and the failure of US Airways’ baggage system.The weekend of chaos was enough to prompt U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta to announce yesterday that he was launching a probe of Comair and US Airways’ air-travel disruptions over the Christmas holiday.“It is important that the department and the traveling public understand what happened, why it happened, and whether the carriers properly planned for the holiday travel period and responded appropriately to consumer needs in the aftermath,” Mr. Mineta said in a statement.Comair said it would operate 60% of its flights yesterday but would need at least two more days to restore a full schedule. Its planes were grounded over the busy holiday weekend by a computer failure and fallout from a paralyzing snowstorm.The Delta subsidiary was giving priority to customers flying to airports not served by Delta and trying to find alternate flights for other passengers, said Nick Miller, a spokesman for Comair, based at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron.Travelers moved slowly along the long rows at the airport, looking for bags that had been misdirected or were caught up by flight cancellations.“This is fun, isn’t it?” said Pete Lindsay, 54, a swimming coach at Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. He was still trying to find a bag lost on a Delta flight from San Diego to Cincinnati, even though Delta told him Sunday it had found the missing piece. He needed it for a flight out today to a swim meet in Florida.About two dozen flights, nearly all Comair, were listed as delayed out of 400 flights on the terminal’s information monitors.Mr. Miller said he did not know how many customers were affected by Comair’s problems, but said the airline serves 30,000 travelers on a normal day.About 50 people stood in line yesterday at the ticket counter shared by Comair and Delta, down from the 100 people who waited for help Sunday.Brittani Gray, 16, arrived at 7:45 a.m. yesterday for a 9 a.m. Comair flight to Houston, but missed it because the line to pass through security stretched up three flights of stairs.Her parents booked her on a later Northwest Airlines flight so she could attend a volleyball camp in Austin, Texas.“We’ve got six hours to kill. I’ve got magazines, movies. I’ll probably sleep,” Ms. Gray said.Comair’s computer system that manages flight assignments failed Friday night, overwhelmed by cancellations and delays caused by the winter storm that socked the Ohio Valley.US Airways was recovering from what its chief executive called an “operational meltdown” with its planes flying out of Philadelphia International Airport at a near-normal pace yesterday.Hundreds of US Airways flights were canceled from Friday to Sunday, the result of severe weather Thursday and large numbers of baggage handlers, ramp workers, and flight attendants calling in sick.US Airways flew two baggage-only flights from Philadelphia to its hub in Charlotte, N.C., on Sunday in an attempt to connect bags to customers, a spokeswoman for the carrier said.Some undelivered bags remained stacked up in Philadelphia’s baggage claim area yesterday, an airport spokesman said.On Sunday, US Airways canceled 43 out of about 1,200 flights system wide, down from 143 cancellations on Saturday and 176 on Friday.Throughout the Northeast yesterday, snow and freezing rain complicated post-holiday travel, stranding hundreds of drivers on slick roads and reducing Boston’s Logan Airport to a single major runway. Dozens of flights in Boston were delayed or cancelled, but Logan Airport runways were reported back in full operation by noon yesterday.

Government Will Probe Holiday Air Travel Snarls

Government Will Probe Holiday Air Travel Snarls

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