St. Louis Airport Shutdown - Tornado Damage

[Anjelica]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/22/injuries-reported-tornado-touches-st-louis-airport/

I posted this on the CB but would probably be more helpful on this board if anyone is flying in/out of St. Louis anytime soon.

They are not sure how long the airport will be shutdown.

 

[mrsksomeday]

We live about 100 miles southeast of St. Louis, thank goodness things were not worse.

We are supposed to fly out of St. Louis on May 11th. I am going to call the airline to see if we can move our flight out of Nashville.

 

[WDWisTheBest]

What a mess. I hope the clean up efforts are swift.

 

[RabFlmom]

We live about 100 miles southeast of St. Louis, thank goodness things were not worse.

We are supposed to fly out of St. Louis on May 11th. I am going to call the airline to see if we can move our flight out of Nashville.

They should have the airport completely repaired by May 11th. We flew out of a Florida airport that had roof damage and no electricity just a few days after a hurricane hit here. Granted you had to avoid the water dripping down from the roof everywhere in the terminal and there was no way for the planes to have ice so we did not get drinks and peanuts on the flight. . When we flew home a week later everything was back to normal. Well not really..... LOL Hurricane Ivan was hitting the Panhandle and was a tropical storm hitting Atlanta when our flight landed there. Wing of the plane almost hit the ground when it got hit by a big gust--everyone was in crash position. We were the last flight allowed to land before the storm hit and they closed the airport. You could not even see the tarmac through the windows. All flights were cancelled so everyone was rescheduling flights over and over as each flight was cancelled. We did get out that night, but had to wait out a scary squall sitting on the tarmac in a rocking little commuter plane. We ended up being on the first flight out. Almost everyone arrived in Florida without their luggage. Somehow ours managed to get on the right flight. <g>

 

[JB2K]

What a mess. I hope the clean up efforts are swift.

A city official (Lambert-St. Louis International Airport) is owned/operated by the City of St. Louis) said, it would be days, not hours, before STL is operational again.

For those of you flying to MCO from STL, I suggest you get with your airline and make changes. Suggested departure points would be Nashville (BNA), Chicago-Midway (MDY), and Kansas City (MCI), since the second airport in St. Louis (BLV) does not currently offer scheduled airline service.

 

[chamonix]

We live about 100 miles southeast of St. Louis, thank goodness things were not worse.

We are supposed to fly out of St. Louis on May 11th. I am going to call the airline to see if we can move our flight out of Nashville.

Howdy neighbor, I'm in Carbondale too. don't bother changing your flight just yet. I don't know what airline you are flying, but rest assured STL will have flights going out long before May 11th.

I would be VERY surprised if they aren't up and running again by next weekend at the latest, probably even sooner. I wouldn't give up my confirmed seat flying out of STL at this point. Besides, the call centers at the airlines will be pretty jammed up today with long waits as they are dealing with re-scheduling all the folks who need to be rescheduled right now. Save yourself that headache and wait. As I said, I'm confident the airport will be up and running a lot sooner than you think.

 

[DebbieB]

The mayor was just on TV. They are hoping for 70% capacity by tomorrow, 100% by the middle of the week.

American is allowing changes for flights up to April 27.

 

[disneydream2009]

Imagine my shock when I got up this morning!! ST. Louis closed?? Then I freaked out for a while I too am from So. IL. We leave on May 6th. Really hope they get it fixed!!! I have confidence the will have it up and running by then! Let's all send them some magic pixie dust!

 

[Jestocost]

As a PP noted, they may actually be back with some operations as early as tomorrow (Sunday). The C Concourse is where the big problems are and they probably will have to move those airlines to other gates for the immediate future. That would include AA, Frontier, AirTran and Cape Air. The biggest issue there may be how soon the airlines can be ready to fly again.

The East Terminal, which is Southwest's terminal, was mostly unaffected and is completely operational right now. Concourse A in the main terminal is pretty much fine and should be operational as soon as they get power restored.

 

[Anjelica]

As a PP noted, they may actually be back with some operations as early as tomorrow (Sunday). The C Concourse is where the big problems are and they probably will have to move those airlines to other gates for the immediate future. That would include AA, Frontier, AirTran and Cape Air. The biggest issue there may be how soon the airlines can be ready to fly again.

The East Terminal, which is Southwest's terminal, was mostly unaffected and is completely operational right now. Concourse A in the main terminal is pretty much fine and should be operational as soon as they get power restored.

Has anyone confirmed that Southwest's flights are 100% right now out of East terminal? I kept looking for an update this morning on that as I heard it wasn't really affected by the storm/tornado. My sister flies in on Thursday on SW. I checked their arrivals and departures and it's not showing everyone of them cancelled so I am hoping its just a glitch in their systems.

As others have stated the Mayor has said they hope to have Lambert back to 70% by tomorrow and 100% by mid-week. Let's hope they are right.

 

[Anjelica]

From Southwest:

http://www.southwest.com/html/travel_center/STLOUIS.html

St. Louis
Southwest Airlines has temporarily suspended operations at St. Louis (STL) through 4p.m. CT on Saturday, April 23 due to damage sustained during Friday evening's severe weather. Our resumption of service is contingent upon the airport's ability to support flight activity.

For specific flight information, please check Flight Status Information.

Customers holding reservations for travel to/from STL all day Saturday, April 23 or Sunday, April 24 are eligible to reschedule their flight in accordance with our accommodation procedures.

If you would like to rebook online, please click reschedule your flight. For Customers who did not purchase their ticket via southwest.com, please call us at 1-800-435-9792 to rebook their flight in the original class of service or travel standby (within 14 days of the original date of travel between the original city-pairs) without paying any additional charge.

Additionally, Customers holding reservations for a cancelled flight to/from STL may request a refund for an unused ticket/travel itinerary by calling us at 1-800-435-9792.

 

[Jestocost]

Has anyone confirmed that Southwest's flights are 100% right now out of East terminal? I kept looking for an update this morning on that as I heard it wasn't really affected by the storm/tornado. My sister flies in on Thursday on SW. I checked their arrivals and departures and it's not showing everyone of them cancelled so I am hoping its just a glitch in their systems.

As others have stated the Mayor has said they hope to have Lambert back to 70% by tomorrow and 100% by mid-week. Let's hope they are right.

The airport is closed and will remain closed until at least tomorrow, so no flights are going in or out of STL at this time. Southwest's terminal is fine and they should be able to resume operations quickly once the airport is open, but it is not open and no flights are coming or going. Getting back on schedule will require getting planes and crews into the airport, however, so there will some ramp up for SWA to get back to a full schedule even after the airport opens.

 

[NotUrsula]

Yes, even though SWA sustained no damage to their own facilities, they still rely on the common airport services (fire protection, security, ATC, etc.), and some of those are somewhat affected by the shutdown.

 

[Anjelica]

Just read SW's updated information regarding flights to/from STL - while they were hoping to resume most of their flights coming/going starting at 6:00PM this evening it looks like that may not be the case:

"That said, we may operate a handful of flights to STL this evening, with hopes to resume service on Sunday, April 24. Please note that our resumption of scheduled service is contingent upon the airport's ability to support flight activity. "

 

[Jestocost]

Just read SW's updated information regarding flights to/from STL - while they were hoping to resume most of their flights coming/going starting at 6:00PM this evening it looks like that may not be the case:

"That said, we may operate a handful of flights to STL this evening, with hopes to resume service on Sunday, April 24. Please note that our resumption of scheduled service is contingent upon the airport's ability to support flight activity. "

Yeah.

Lambert expects that some incoming flights may be resumed tonight. I assume that mostly will be to stage planes for outbound flights in the morning. I don't think there ever was any chance of anybody resuming outbound flights tonight.

 

[NotUrsula]

Lambert has now re-opened officially. They hope to be up to 70% of capacity by tonight.

Lambert is kind of a special case, and if this had to happen to any airport in the US, Lambert is probably the one that can recover from it the most easily. There is one entire unused concourse at Lambert, and that means that the flights that had been using the damaged gates can easily temporarily switch over to the unused concourse while they work on repairs.

 

[seashoreCM]

It might take some time to get the new gate podiums linked up (cable and wire wise) with the ticket counters, unless telephone company workers are available on Sundays.

The airlines might have to do without the standby list and bump list display, the CNN news entertainment, automatic flight number and destination signs, boarding pass scanning, and other customized electronics for a little longer. This could result in some non-standard procedures for boarding order, selecting of volunteers, etc.

 

[NotUrsula]

As it happens, I had a couple of AT&T crew at my house yesterday morning for a pre-scheduled fiber-optics install, and we asked what was going to be done. The outside crew told us that we were the only install scheduled yesterday, and that as soon as they were finished, they were supposed to report to the emergency command center to be assigned for storm repairs. These guys were subcontractors, not AT&T employees, and I'm guessing that the city can hire them just as easily as AT&T can.

The unused concourse has pretty up-to-date wiring in place, because it was only closed about a year ago. I think that they just have to fire everything up and code it for the new occupants, so I don't think it will take too terribly long as long as the airlines' IT people are on it.

Lambert airport has blueprints all ready for a total remodel of the main terminal; it was supposed to have been started 18 months ago, but because of the economy they had tabled most of the project and just settled for doing a few really crucial things, like new directional signage outside, and some fresh interior paint. It looks like the plans will be going forward now, since they have to do major repairs anyway; they should be able to get funding both from the insurance and from Federal disaster funds.

They are replacing the glass in the Yamasaki windows now; those won't be changed. (This photo is from the 60's, before the advent of modern traffic control procedures, but the windows are the same as ever. About half of this glass was shattered on Friday night. The photo only shows 3 of the four vaulted windows):

 

[mrsksomeday]

Howdy neighbor, I'm in Carbondale too. don't bother changing your flight just yet. I don't know what airline you are flying, but rest assured STL will have flights going out long before May 11th.

I would be VERY surprised if they aren't up and running again by next weekend at the latest, probably even sooner. I wouldn't give up my confirmed seat flying out of STL at this point. Besides, the call centers at the airlines will be pretty jammed up today with long waits as they are dealing with re-scheduling all the folks who need to be rescheduled right now. Save yourself that headache and wait. As I said, I'm confident the airport will be up and running a lot sooner than you think.

Hello neighbor!! I was overreacting just a little, no sleep, worried about the trip etc . We are still flying out of St. Louis .

Imagine my shock when I got up this morning!! ST. Louis closed?? Then I freaked out for a while I too am from So. IL. We leave on May 6th. Really hope they get it fixed!!! I have confidence the will have it up and running by then! Let's all send them some magic pixie dust!

Hello fellow Southern Illinoisian!!

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NotUrsula, thanks for all the information.