RDM travelers feel impact of East Coast blizzard

With 7,600 flights canceled and 3,200 flights delayed, air travelers in Central Oregon were concerned Tuesday if their flights were still on track.

For the most part, they were.

“I was worried. I called the airport earlier to make sure that everything was still flying,” said Peggy Himes-Kershaw, who was traveling to California.

Staff at Roberts Field worked hard to reschedule flights for those affected.

“Boston and Chicago, we’ve noticed, had the worst delays and cancellations,” said Lorna Miller, who works as a manager with DGS, which operates Delta and United flights at the airport. “New York operations — they’ve got three airports there, so if one had an issue, we were able to get them close enough to their final destinations.”

Flight delays and cancellations on the East Coast have snowballed into delays on the West Coast as well.

“It is worrisome, especially when we have so few flights here out of Redmond,-Bend airport,” said Bend resident Craig Wilhelm, who was traveling to California via Portland. “If there is a delay of such, and we get canceled off a flight, often times it’s very difficult to get onto another flight.”

Now that the worst of the storm is over and it was less powerful than expected, things are slowly returning to normal in the skies.

“We’ve hadn’t had any cancellations today so we think things are lightening up a little bit over there,” Miller said.

Although the worst might be over, officials stress the importance of checking with your airline before you go.

“I have the airline on speed dial, unfortunately,” Wilhelm said.