Winter weather leads to flight delays, cancellations in Chicago

The winter weather that slammed the Chicago area early Monday was not doing any favors for people trying to fly out.

Hundreds of flights were canceled at O'Hare and Midway international airports. As of 11:10 a.m., a total of 515 flights had been canceled at O'Hare and 48 at Midway. Spring break would have to wait for some.

O'Hare also topped the charts for all U.S. airports with the most cancellations on Sunday, according to FlightAware.

Sunday night and Monday morning, O'Hare was hustling and bustling, filled with a nervous energy.

The winter storm, coupled with Monday morning business travel and families leaving for spring break meant lots of moving parts.

Stephanie Schlepp was only supposed to be passing through Chicago on a connecting flight, but instead got stuck.

"I actually had like three canceled flights," she said. "They started canceling yesterday, late afternoon, and then I had booked another flight. That one got canceled, and then they rebooked me for one this morning. So, it's just been kind of a nightmare already."

One family who was waiting in a security line got delayed due to winds in Philadelphia and then their connecting flight in Chicago was canceled multiple times due to snow.

That left them trying to get on a flight that gets them close enough to home that they can drive the rest of the way, but mother nature wasn't behaving in their home state of Missouri, either.

One traveler, Keith Jackson, ended up changing up continents for his vacation to avoid a days-long delay.

"The Ireland flight wasn't going to leave until Wednesday, so we don't want to lose half the vacation, so we're just going to Mexico now," he said, "so from the northeast to southwest."

But the weather was not the only factor causing problems at the airports on Monday morning.

Anyone trying to fly into Chicago was likely to be snagged by long security lines due to Transportation Security Administration agent shortages. A total of 300 agents have quit, and call-outs have more than doubled from what they were before the partial government shutdown affecting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began.

TSA lines have not been an issue for Chicago airports so far. But that shoe is about to drop too, according to the president of the union that represents Illinois and Wisconsin TSA workers.

"If you don't have the resources to come to work, you're not going to be able to be to work," said AFGE Local 777 President Darrell English. "That means that there's going to be longer wait time lines, there's going to be an impact on the flying public, and it's going to disrupt things."

As was observed last week at O'Hare, the security lines at TSA PreCheck seemed to have the longest waits Monday morning. But the line fluctuated, ramping up and dying down.

A nervous energy was observed at O'Hare between the PreCheck line, conditions on the roads due to the weather, and flight cancellations.