Pittsburgh International Airport passengers dealing with flood of flight cancellations, delays

Shortly before 10 a.m. Wednesday, Pittsburgh International Airport looked as though it was in a state of suspended animation.

A computer glitch in a government system largely brought airlines to a halt, delaying or canceling thousands of flights across the U.S. earlier in the morning.

The carousels in the normally bustling baggage claim were empty.

Passengers expecting to be on flights or already at their destinations sat forlornly contemplating their next move: wait for that day’s next available flight, rebook, or pack it in and go home.

Don Bayla, who volunteers as an Airport Ambassador and is a former US Airways employee, said the closest thing he could compare it to was 9/11, when terrorist attacks brought all flights to a halt. He said he heard about the flight problems on the radio while driving to the airport.

“It’s been very quiet. Dead. I got here at 9:30, and usually we’re getting lots of questions but not today,” Bayla said. “Everybody’s stuck. Usually we get questions from people coming in looking for their baggage — but nobody’s coming in.”

And early on, nobody was going out. Kirk Zelich, 27, of Shaler works for a concrete company and was supposed to be flying to Myrtle Beach, S.C., on business. His American Airlines flight was canceled.

“I’m very frustrated. I was supposed to fly out three hours ago. I haven’t heard anything,” Zelich said. “I have to go home, and I’m hoping to reschedule on Friday because I need to be (in Myrtle Beach). I was supposed to be there today.”

Claire Wellejus, 26, of Erie was supposed to be flying out at 6 a.m. on an American Airlines flight to Grenada, West Indies, via Miami. She arrived at the airport at 4 a.m. She’s a student of veterinary medicine at St. George’s University in Grenada and needed to be back by Monday for the start of the semester. But the earliest flight she was able to rebook doesn’t leave until Tuesday.

“I’m going to have to be late (for classes),” Wellejus said. “I’m waiting for my uncle to pick me up. He has to drive out here again.”

Movie producer Brian Hartman, 55, of Regent Square was in a hurry to get to Los Angeles to work with a composer on his Pittsburgh-shot film “Unsinkable” about the Titanic disaster. His American Airlines flight was scheduled to leave shortly after 11 a.m.

“I woke up to the big story of the system outage,” Hartman said. “My flight was initially delayed a couple of hours and then another two hours after that. It’s a headache that everybody’s dealing with. It’s the entire country, so I’m not going to complain about it.”

Hartman said he wasn’t entirely confident he was going to make it to the West Coast by the time he needed to be there.

“It doesn’t seem like anybody really knows what the problem is or what caused it,” he said. “So, no, I’m not confident at all.”

A couple of seats away, Paula Whisner, 76, was patiently waiting for the arrival of her younger sister Linda, whom she hadn’t seen in more than 16 years. She figured she would come to the airport and surprise Linda, who was flying in from Vancouver, Wash., and planning to rent a car and drive to Paula’s house.

“Her flight should have been here in Pittsburgh at 11:15. She’s now arriving at 2:30. I left my house at 6 to come out here,” Whisner said.

All in all, it had been a strange day at the airport, said Katelyn Grimm, 27, of Midland, a server/bartender at the airport restaurant Buford’s Kitchen.

“At 8 o’clock I opened. I ran to the restroom and came back and there were all these people sitting at the bar, and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness! This is not normal,’” Grimm said. “So then I looked up at the (departure/arrival) boards and all of the East Coast flights were remarked, which means they changed the times. I’ve never seen that.”