Philly airport mostly back to normal, but some travelers face booking backlogs

Flights into and out of Philadelphia International Airport were running mostly as scheduled as of Monday afternoon. Major carriers said they will offer a full range of flights along the eastern seaboard by Tuesday morning.

Flights leaving from Philadelphia were suspended Saturday evening, stranding travelers including Marie Marklein, from Virginia, in the city for an extra day.

“I went out with my family for dinner, read a book–a whole book–yesterday afternoon!” Marklein said as she waited for her re-scheduled flight at the airport.

Omar Scruggs of Germantown was stuck Sunday in Atlanta for a day after a layover coming home from New Orleans.

“I was paranoid that a hurricane would hit New Orleans when I was booking this like a month ago,” Scruggs said. “I still got caught because it wind up hitting Philly instead.”

Almost 12,000 flights were canceled around the country Saturday and Sunday, and well over a thousand Monday. With the already busy Labor Day travel weekend approaching, some travelers are reporting having to wait up to a week to reschedule flights back home.

Anna Guivarch was scheduled to return to France Sunday, but said she could not find an affordable return ticket until the following weekend.

“At first I was really pissed off, because I wanted to go back in France,” Guivarch said. “Now I just deal with it and I’m happy to stay one more week in USA.”

Over the weekend Virgin Atlantic warned that it might take more than three or four days to re-book flights between the U.K. and east coast cities.