Bad Weather Elsewhere Affects Knoxville Flights

By Michael Silence, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.

Feb. 16–A strong blast of winter weather in the Midwest and Northeast produced a domino effect on Knoxville, with more than 100 flights in and out of McGhee Tyson Airport delayed this week.

The delays were more numerous than what airport officials usually see because the arctic storm was so widespread, said Dave Conklin, vice president of marketing for the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority.

“It was so broad and tall it covered everything from Chicago east,” Conklin said.

He said the airlines are doing a better job of preparing for these storms by getting people on earlier or alternative flights.

They are motivated to do that to deal with less of a mess of getting people on flights during and immediately after a storm, he said.

“They (the airlines) started on Tuesday contacting fliers and worked with them to get different arrangements,” Airport Authority spokeswoman Becky Huckaby said.

Knoxville’s interrupted service involved flights to or from Minneapolis, Memphis, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Charlotte, N.C., Cincinnati and Philadelphia.

McGhee Tyson Airport has nonstop flights to all of those cities as well as various connecting flights.

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