East Coast storm cancels dozens of SFO flights, over 100 delays

The snowstorm taking aim on the East Coast is already having impacts on travelers in the Bay Area.

Airlines canceled close to 8,000 flights Monday and Tuesday and that included dozens of flights from the Bay Area.

San Francisco International Airport had 44 flights canceled Monday and 111 delays including flights headed to Washington D.C., New York, Boston and Philadelphia.
 
Robin Sylvis, who just became a grandmother, arrived in the Bay Area Monday night.
 
"I'm just happy to be in San Francisco and not in Philadelphia right now," said Sylvis.
 
The Philadelphia resident was originally supposed to fly into SFO this coming Wednesday to see her 3-month old granddaughter in Oakland.
 
"I got an email from the airline saying 'We're expecting a lot of snow, if you have flexible plans please try to move your flight up to today.' So I was happy to do that, come early, see my new grand baby. I was happy to," said Sylvis.
 
Laura Alders from Novato was in Pennsylvania for a wedding and also flew into SFO Monday night.
 
"As I understand it, we were one of the last flights that got out before the weather," said Alders.
But her family members weren't so lucky.
 
"Most of their flights were canceled so I was the lucky one with the good flight in the morning," said Alders.
 
At least 50 flights are canceled out of SFO Tuesday.
 
"It's so empty. It's so quiet. It's unusual for SFO," said volunteer Michael Krause. "It's one of the major airports in the U.S. and there's nobody here!"
 
Airlines have canceled thousands of flights nationwide for Tuesday including Southwest, which doesn't expect to operate any flights Tuesday at 14 airports on the East Coast.
 
Los Angeles-based architect Sarah Jensen at SFO was able to check-in and get a boarding pass on her phone for her flight to Washington D.C. Tuesday.

She is cautiously optimistic yet worries if she can't fly out on her scheduled flight that it will delay the health system facility she's working on in the D.C. area.
 
"It's a big disruption so it pushes everything back a week. So that's big with projects," said Jensen.
 
As for grandmother Robin Sylvis, she joked she won't be needing the North Face jacket she wore in from Philadelphia.

"It's so ironic to be traveling in March and have weather you don't expect. You think it's over. You think it's spring," said Sylvis.
 
The flight tracking website FlightAware says nationwide there were about 2300 flights canceled Monday, about 5,600 flights are canceled for Tuesday and several hundred flights are already canceled for Wednesday.