St. Louis Airport Damaged, Closed Indefinitely After Storm
April 23, 2011, 11:18 AM EDTBy Dan Hart
(Updates with description of damage in third paragraph.)
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in St. Louis is closed indefinitely due to severe damage after a storm, including a possible tornado, struck last night.
“All inbound and outbound flights are canceled at Lambert until further notice pending safety and operational assessments to determine the full extent of damage to the airport complex and the surrounding area,” the airport said in a statement today.
The storm broke most of the glass windows and doors and tore off sections of the roof at one of Lambert’s concourses, according to Jeff Lea, a spokesman for the airport.
“We had damage to light poles, signs as well as trees and fences,” Lea said in an interview. “Some vehicles were turned over.”
As many as 12.3 million passengers passed through Lambert last year, Lea said. The airport operates 256 departures daily and about the same number of arrivals, and is served by 13 carriers flying to 61 destinations, according to the airport’s website.
Southwest Airlines Co., the biggest carrier at the airport, canceled the majority of its 85 Lambert flights through 4 p.m. local time, said a spokeswoman, Marilee McInnis. She said the low-fare carrier was forced to scrub nine flights last night after the storm and other flights were diverted. Southwest doesn’t charge penalties for rebooking flights.
Aircraft Damage
McInnis said one Southwest plane on the ground was damaged when a belt loader hit the aircraft. “We’re continuing to assess the damage as we look at operations,” McInnis said in a telephone interview.
AMR Corp.’s American Airlines will be forced to cancel flights today, said a spokesman, Ed Martell. He said there no injuries to customers or staff, even as one of the airline’s planes experienced a crosswind of 70 miles per hour (112 kilometers per hour) while landing during the storm.
American, the second-biggest operator at Lambert, agreed to waive penalties for rebooking St. Louis flights for travel through April 27, for passengers who bought tickets through yesterday. Flights can be rebooked for trips as late as May 1, American said today on its website.
Lambert isn’t a hub for any of the major U.S. carriers, which tempers the blow to the nation’s air-traffic system. One- time lead tenant Trans World Airlines agreed in 2001 to be bought by AMR, which has pared operations at the airport by almost half in the past four years.
Southwest Network
The airport’s biggest carrier by traffic is Dallas-based Southwest. Unlike other large airlines, Southwest’s network is based on so-called point-to-point routes, meaning it doesn’t rely on small planes to collect passengers at regional airports and funnel them into hubs for mainline flights on larger jets.
Southwest had 44 percent of St. Louis passengers for the 12 months ended in January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. American ranked No. 2, with 20 percent, followed by 9 percent for Delta Air Lines Inc.
The top destination airports for flights from Lambert are Chicago, a hub for American and United Continental Holdings Inc.; Atlanta, the home base for Delta; and Dallas-Fort Worth, where American has its headquarters, according to BTS data.
--With assistance from Natalie Doss in New York and Mike Harrison in London. Editors: Theo Mullen, Ed Dufner
To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Hart in Washington at dahart@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sylvia Wier at swier@bloomberg.net
