Nor'easter cancels half of RDU flights, 15,000 passengers affected

Travelers at RDU International Airport are experiencing a trickle down effect. Around 170 flights to and from RDU were canceled Tuesday. That is around half of all flights for the day and will affect around 15,000 passengers.

Flights to and from Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and other cities north of Washington, D.C., were impacted.

"When we got to our airport and found out our flights had been canceled, so everybody was scrambling," said passenger Natalie Painter. "I think a good amount of people were sleeping in the airport. We were able to get a hotel and got on the first flight out."

RDU officials said the airport does not expect the schedule to be normal for at least a day or two.

Many airlines planned ahead and re-booked passengers in the days leading up to the storm through airports not affected by the weather.

William Reckling is heading to San Salvador through Houston instead of New Jersey.

"They waived all fees and did it very efficiently," Reckling said. "This was done about 2 days ago. I believe it was on Sunday."

A few passengers managed to get out of the Northeast this morning before the storm became too bad.

"It was just strange. Most of the flights were canceled, I'm surprised my flight wasn't canceled. it was an 8:00 departure to Charlotte and the road conditions were pretty tough,"said Jim Gennari, who flew out of Albany.

Because this storm was so widely publicized, there are few stranded travelers, as they knew not to come to the airport,

The only flights that are getting out are heading west or south, and even some of those have been delayed.