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Tonya Papanikolas ReportingA powerful blizzard has blown into the Denver area, wreaking havoc with roads. The storm has even shut down Denver International Airport, cancelling hundreds of flights.
Unfortunately, anyone who's flying through or into Denver for their holiday plans is feeling the effects. As of 3:00 pm today, 17 flights had been cancelled out of Salt Lake International. Airline officials were expecting that many could be cancelled tonight. We saw some frustrated travelers there.
The line at Frontier Airlines was a long one this evening. Since Denver is the airline's hub, most of their flights go through that city and people leaving Utah couldn't get out, whether they were flying to Denver or other destinations.
Some travelers told us they tried to call the airlines and couldn't get through, so they showed up to wait in line.
Mike Fronk, Supposed to Fly through Denver: "Tomorrow we're supposed to fly to Cabo, but my mom called us and said that Denver was shut down. We're just hoping that we can get something else."
Kevin Williams, Trying to Get Daughter to Denver: "This is my daughter and she's going to Denver to spend Christmas with her mom, and we've been stuck here waiting for these guys to set us up."
Sophie Ellison, Trying to Get to Denver: "This is actually the second time that I've rescheduled today, and now I can't leave ‘til Saturday, but at least they got me out sometime."
Sophie Ellison said she waited two hours in line. A Frontier supervisor told me for people flying through Denver, they were trying to put them through other cities so they could get where they were going.
Of course, this is all happening during the busy holiday rush when a lot of people are flying. AAA has some advice to make air travel faster and less stressful.
- Liquids and gel carry ons are limited to 3 ounce containers and must be placed in a clear, quart-sized ziplock plastic bag.
- Travel with unwrapped gifts. If a wrapped gift sets off an alarm, it will be unwrapped.
- Be sure to put ID tags on all luggage, even carry ons.
There's much more on the AAA website.
