Anchorage Daily News

Under normal circumstances Linda Boochever would have been cooking all day Monday for her annual holiday dinner. But Monday evening the table was bare. There was no famous cheddar nut-loaf in the oven. Dinner was canceled due to a missing ingredient: family.

Storms in the Pacific Northwest stranded one son in California and another in Oregon. Alaska Airlines couldn't re-book anyone until at least Christmas Day. So instead of cooking, Boochever spent frustrating hours on a phone that just buzzed busy signals in her ear.

She wasn't alone.

Continuing snow and ice and problems with de-icing airplanes in Seattle and Portland threw the plans of holiday travelers into turmoil for the third day. Their flights canceled, travelers spent hours on the phone and stood in long lines in airports from Anchorage to Miami trying to get to holiday destinations.

If the weather cooperates -- a few more inches of snow are forecast to fall in Seattle and Portland -- flights could return to normal today, said Marianne Lindsey, an Alaska Airlines spokeswoman.

The airline had problems with its de-icer supply because trucks carrying the chemicals were slowed by the snow, she said.

She was not sure if the airline would add flights today. People trying to travel before Christmas who have been re-booked on flights after Christmas should call today to see if they can change their reservation to an earlier date, she said. Even though the phones are busy, they should keep trying, she said.

If people have already booked flights, they should check their status online.

Family members might be stuck, but the flow of presents into and out of the state is apparently fine. Weather didn't snarl cargo shipments to Alaska, according to spokespeople with FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service. Cargo flights can be easily rerouted, they said.

However, deliveries to people in snowed-in Northwest cities and towns could experience delays with some carriers.

Among people stranded in cities across the country, there were long tales of woe.

going nowhere

At Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, where a line 80 people long snaked along the marbled floor Monday morning, Kirk and Sandy Pintus were hoping to find a way to get back to their children for Christmas. Their flight home to St. George, Utah, was canceled. They tried for hours to reach someone at Alaska Airlines on the phone, but finally decided just to go to the ticket counter.

"I bet we've racked up probably four hours on each of our cells," Kirk said.

"It's insane," Sandy chimed in.

Brooke Pollock, reached in Seattle by phone, began her journey home to Anchorage from college in Rochester, N.Y., on Saturday.

She stood in line for seven hours overnight at the Seattle airport to re-book the last leg of her flight to Anchorage after it was canceled. She couldn't get an Alaska Airlines flight until today, so her mother bought her a ticket on Continental.

She boarded that flight Sunday and waited hours for a de-icing truck, which never showed. All the passengers were taken off the plane, then re-boarded hours later, she said. When the truck finally came to de-ice, it ran out of fluid halfway through and the flight was canceled.

So, on Monday afternoon, she was killing time in Seattle shopping after staying the night with family friends. She now has two Anchorage-bound flights booked, one on each airline.

"I'm a little worried, though," she said. "Because it's supposed to snow."

State Rep. Les Gara, returning from a trip to Peru, was stuck with his wife in Miami Beach, Fla. Alaska Airlines told him they couldn't put them on a plane to Anchorage until Dec. 30.

Cooling his heels in Florida for that long just wasn't realistic, Gara said. For one thing, his wife had to get back to work.

He had no choice but to buy one-way tickets on another airline, for a total of $1,500. The only flight available gets in early Christmas Day.

It hasn't been cheap, but at least they have a hotel on the beach.

"It's really not that bad," he admitted.

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.