Wintry blast grounds flights at regional airport

Officials, passengers hopeful jets can resume flying today

By Bill Bowden

HIGHFILL — No commercial flights departed Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport on Tuesday.

Normally, the airport has about 51 arrivals and departures a day, but icy conditions almost froze air traffic Tuesday.

Kelly Johnson, the airport manager, said two flights landed - a Delta Airlines flight from Cincinnati and a U.S. Air flight from Charlotte, N.C. Two more were scheduled to arrive Tuesday night.

Eight passengers spent Monday night on cots at the airport and waited Tuesday for flights that didn't take off.

"Getting irritated doesn't really get you very far," said Abe Klassen, 33, of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

His Northwest Airlink flight was supposed to leave at 5:12 p.m. Monday. It taxied out but returned to the terminal because of icy conditions.

"Everybody at home has their fingers crossed for me to get home safely," said Klassen,a welder.

"It wasn't bad," said Bruce Alexander, 48, who is Klassen's boss. "I've stayed in a lot worse places."

The airport keeps 30 cots, blankets and pillows on hand for passengers who get stranded when the weather turns bad, said Mark Mellinger, assistant airport manager. He didn't know Tuesday evening how many people might camp out in the terminal Tuesday night.

"In conditions like this, we get a few," said Mellinger.

By 2 p.m., Northwest Airlink said none of its flights would leave the regional airport on Tuesday, so Klassen and Alexander had gotten hotel rooms. The road to Fayetteville was blocked by tree limbs, they heard, so they headed to Bentonville for accommodations instead. Theyhoped to leave on the 5:12 p.m. flight on Wednesday.

Lisa Kalp, 45, of Cassville, Mo., was in good spirits even though she missed her aunt's funeral in Boston because of a canceled American Eagle flight Tuesday morning.

"My father spent 444 days as a hostage in Iran," she said, referring to Malcolm Kalp, a financial administrator in the U.S. embassy that was seized by militants in 1979. "I think I can handle a delayed flight."

Kalp said she still had time to make the shiva, a Jewish period of mourning after a funeral. It would continue until sundown Friday, she said.

"I got to sit on a plane for 3 1/2 hours last night," said McGowin Patrick, 45, of Mobile, Ala.

Patrick had come to Northwest Arkansas to look into a real estate deal. The Northwest Airlink flight he was supposed to take at 4:20 p.m. Monday was canceled. He spent the night in a nearby hotel and returned Tuesday morning hoping to get on the next flight out. But by 2 p.m., he had given up, rented a car and went looking for a hotel room.

"Nothing you can do," he said. "You can't force the weather. They're saying it's going to be sunny tomorrow. I can't wait to see that."

There were only 10 passengers waiting for flights at 11 a.m. Tuesday, but lines were beginning to form by noon at the check-in counters.

"Most of the passengers are doing what we asked them to do, and that's check with their airline before they drive out here," Johnson said. "It's not like the old days where you didn't know until you got here what's going on. Most of our travelers are pretty tech-savvy, and it makes no sense to put yourself in harm's way trying to get out here."

Several flights scheduled to take off Tuesday morning were canceled late Monday, Johnson said. The last flight into the regional airport on Monday was a Delta flight from Cincinnati that arrived at about 8:40 p.m. About 10 flights that were expected to come in Monday night didn't because of the weather, she said.

"So, most of our early-morning departures weren't here," Johnson said.

Johnson said the airport used $20,000 worth of sodium formate, a de-icer, on the runway and ramps Monday night. Airport workers continued using de-icing chemical Tuesday morning as a combination ofrain and sleet continued to fall throughout the day.

Johnson said one Northwest flight taxied out Tuesday morning, but the pilot decided not totake off because of the weather.

"Why would you send an aircraft into known icy conditions?" Johnson said. "That's why you don't see anything movingout there, and that's the prudent thing to do. They're not really worried about the runway right now. They're worried about iceaccumulating on airborne aircraft."

Besides the eight passengers, several airport employees and U.S. Transportation Security Administration personnel also spent Monday night at the airport. Johnson said she stayed there, getting an hour of sleep at her desk.

Even though only one flight left Tuesday morning, Johnson said the airport must be ready for a lot of activity as soon as the weather clears. She said Tuesday's ice storm appeared to be the worst since 2000, when traffic at the regional airport was at a standstill for three days.

"You can plow snow," Johnson said. "You can broom snow, but this stuff sticks."

It was business as usual a Fort Smith Regional Airport on Tuesday with flights coming and going throughout the day, airport manager John Parker said. He said Northwest Airlink and American Eagle each canceled one flight into Fort Smith late Monday as a precaution against the weather.

Information for this report was contributed by Dave Hughes of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9, 14 on 01/28/2009