Travelers figure out their plans after their flight to Chicago gets cancelled
/ Tom Eschen
SYRACUSE -- As a winter storm bears down on New England, travelers at Syracuse's Hancock Airport were already feeling the storm's affect on their travel plans Thursday night.
Dozens of travelers said their flights were either delayed or cancelled, impacting their plans for not only Thursday night, but the rest of the weekend as well. Around 7 o'clock, an entire flight to Chicago was cancelled, and with no flights available until Friday morning, passengers at Hancock Airport were forced to find a place to stay or rent a car. Some said the cancellation completely changed their plans.
"My plans were to fly home and surprise my wife, she did not know I was coming home tonight," Jacob Qualls, who lives in Chicago, says.
Standing near Qualls was New Hartford resident Shelby Boucher, who was flying to Chicago in order to connect to Austin, Texas. She was planning on seeing her father for a business seminar, and was looking forward to some sun.
"If I can beg a flight out to Austin that would be great because I really like the weather down there," Boucher says. "It's a lot better than up here."
But, not everyone who was affected was traveling to Chicago. SU student Taylor Cartwright was planning on flying to Florida to meet her mother for her cousin's national cheerleading competition, but had her connecting flight in Washington delayed twice, which will force her to miss her flight to Florida.
"I have to fly to Washington tonight, and not fly out until tomorrow night," Cartwright, who will now miss a day of being down in Florida, says. "I guess I'll just sit there in the airport until tomorrow at 5 p.m."
More flights are expected to be affected tomorrow and this weekend as the storm moves up the coast, so Cartwright will not be the only one waiting for her flight in the airport.
