BIA survives holiday chaos Storm, computer problems resolved

BANGOR – Bangor International Airport’s director admitted Tuesday that the airport easily could have handled problems that surfaced over the holidays if only they had come one at a time.

Instead, foul weather, computer malfunctions and a barrage of lost luggage came together in a span of a couple days, testing the patience of airport travelers.

“Things are returning to normal,” BIA Director Rebecca Hupp said Tuesday afternoon from her office.

“We had been expecting an increase in passengers, but I don’t think anyone was prepared for such difficult situations.”

Comair, a unit of Delta Air Lines, was forced to cancel nearly 1,000 flights systemwide on Christmas Day after the company’s computer system crashed.

Four of those canceled flights were from BIA to Delta’s hub at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport, Hupp said.

“Comair is operating [out of Bangor] now,” she said. “All the flights from Bangor [that had to be postponed] are full over the next few days. They may even be oversold.”

Comair’s Web site confirmed that flight operations were at 60 percent on Monday and 75 percent on Tuesday, though Hupp didn’t know how those numbers affected Bangor’s Comair flights.

The Delta connector is expected to return to normal by today, but clients with flights scheduled through Dec. 31 are encouraged to check the status before heading to the airport, the Web site stated.

An intense Christmas Eve winter storm in the Ohio River Valley was the culprit for Comair’s wave of cancellations and delays, but the weather also played a role in an unusual amount of baggage problems with for U.S. Airways customers.

The same storm that hit Cincinnati made its way to the U.S. Airways hub in Philadelphia, causing a huge number of flight attendants to call in sick or snowed-in. U.S. Airways saw several delays in flights but saw a big jump in the number of lost luggage reports.

Hupp said U.S. Airways was working Tuesday to reunite BIA passengers with their luggage and admitted the process might be slow going. She added that it is still too early to assess how many passengers were affected by problems over the holidays.

“Passengers are understandably disappointed; some people deal with it better than others,” Hupp said. “Most people recognize that their difficulties are not a result of anything controlled by this airport.”

Some members of the University of Maine men’s ice hockey team started Tuesday afternoon’s tournament game in Estero, Fla., without their own equipment because it was still stuck in Bangor.