CHICAGO — Some travelers are still struggling to get to their destinations Saturday morning after thousands of flights were cancelled across the country Friday.
In addition to flight issues, travelers at O’Hare Internation Airport had trouble getting to their gates because of the airport train systems being down — adding chaos for travelers.
The down system led to people waiting in line for shuttle buses to get them to terminals, parking lots and rental cars — some waited up to two and a half hours.
In a statement, the Chicago Department of Aviation said the Airport Transit System was down from about 3 p.m. Thursday until early Saturday morning because of the extreme weather.
The CDA said it is keeping the bus shuttle service on standby in case of another outage of the transit system.
WGN Investigates reported in May 2021 the system had issues operating in snow, ice and cold.
Many travelers were already dealing with flight cancelations or delays with over 584 flights canceled out of O’Hare Friday and nearly 9,000 flights delayed.
More than 300 flights were canceled at Midway airport.
The travel inconveniences amid the holidays are only a part of a much bigger issue stemming from the winter storm and trailing artic air that is continuing to impact much of the country.
Across the U.S. nearly 6,000 flights were canceled and more than 11,000 were delayed causing a ripple effect.
“My flight here is an hour late already and I have a tight connection in Frankfort, only 3 hours or so, we’ll see,” Puja Chandnani said.
Since midnight Friday night there have been nearly 150 flight cancellations at O’Hare and 70 flights canceled at midway. More than 1,000 flights already canceled or delayed across the country, setting the stage for another day of travel issues. Many are still holding out hope they will still get to their destinations by Christmas.
