=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2006/12/22/BAG6AN4FPP= 1.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, December 22, 2006 (SF Chronicle) SAN FRANCISCO/Christmas cheer in short supply as travel plans get snowed un= der Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer With Christmas plans in jeopardy for tens of thousands of passengers, thanks to a blizzard that has shut down the busy Denver Airport since Wednesday, it would be understandable if tempers ran hot among those stranded at San Francisco International Airport. Instead, hundreds of travelers waiting in line for hours to learn the fa= te of their flights bought each other lunch, shared schemes for alternate routes, and wondered if splitting the cost of a rental car and driving to Colorado would be a smart thing to do. "We're in the acceptance phase," said Faith Shaw of San Francisco, who w= as trying to get to Vail in time for Christmas with her family. But that's looking increasingly unlikely for Shaw and thousands of others whose travel plans, alas, include a swing through the Denver hub, which is scheduled to stay closed at least through noon today. Buried under 2 feet of snow, Colorado all but shut down two days ago as road and air transportation came to a halt, and officials tried to figure out what to do with thousands of passengers stuck in the airport. They hired buses to trail after a snowplow and carry travelers to hotels, and they hauled out Red Cross cots for them to sleep on. United Airlines alone canceled more than 2,000 flights across the country that went through Denver. "There's a lot of very bitter people here, and I'm one of them," said Robert Helmer, a pharmacist who sat in a plane for three hours on a Denver runway before being told his flight was going nowhere. "This isn't an act of God," he said. "It was mismanagement by United." Helmer spent the night on the airport floor. By contrast, the scene at San Francisco airport was a lesson in civility. Despite 36 canceled flights, for the most part, the terminal looked normal. The exception was a line of people that snaked through a corner of the United Airlines area like a long root in a tight pot. And even though 100 people had spent Wednesday night at SFO, and more people were prepared to do same on Thursday, people generally kept their tempers in check. Shaw and her luggage had been in line for more than two hours, long enou= gh to get chummy with the banker in front of her and the student behind her. The three shared a bowl of lo mein and tried to ignore the fact that their dining table was a dusty blue carpet. "I could cry right now," said Laura Young, a Stanford graduate student heading for Mississippi by way of Denver. "But that wouldn't change anything, so I might as well make friends with the people in front of me." Disappointment, not anger, prevailed. John Bondy, his wife Linda and 16-year-old daughter, Hannah, had just spent 30 hours on a flight from South Korea, where they live and teach at Korea Nazarene University. Their plan was to fly to Kansas City via Denver, then drive 13 hours to Nashville, where they would spend Christmas with their extended family for the first time in six years. Bondy sighed. "I'm starting to lose hope," he said. "It's scary and disappointing." Then something occurred to him. Surrounded by luggage, with hundreds of people in front and behind him in line, and with a dwindling chance that any flight could accommodate his family before Christmas, he smiled. He gave a big, fake shiver in mockery of his own anxiety. "God is with us," Bondy said. "From the Christian perspective, I'm relaxed." Others in line were also relaxed, but mainly it was because they hadn't slept for a long time. The last person in line was Azwyn Aziz. She had just traveled from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia with her nephews, Nicholas Torres, 4, and Raelan Torres, 2, en route to Denver. As they approached their last-place spot in line, Aziz gazed in disbelief at all the people ahead of them. "I'm not feeling very well about this," she said. "We've traveled so far. We've spent a day on the airplane. And to find that we cannot go there ..." Her voice trailed off. "We're very tired." But even the first person in line, Mayu Suzuki of Denver, got little comfort after reaching the counter and hearing what United Airlines baggage checker Eugenio Curvati had to say: "You're on stand-by for tomorrow morning at 8:30," he told Suzuki, "but I don't know if it's actually going to leave. And we're not taking any baggage right now." Suzuki steered her well-filled luggage cart away from the counter and maneuvered it through a crowd of people and one large, brown dog. Though she had just spent 15 hours on a plane from Australia, Suzuki rejected the idea of going to a hotel for the night. "I'm staying at the airport. I want to get back as soon as possible," she said. "My boyfriend is getting into Denver tomorrow from Japan, and we're spending Christmas at Aspen." Really? Dressed in a bright yellow down parka and large fuzzy boots, Suzuki planted herself on a cushioned bench. With one hand resting on her luggage cart, Suzuki sat gazing straight ahead. Fifteen minutes later, she was still there. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the line. United Airlines operations manager Carl Yu had arrived to tell people that if Denver was their destination, they might as well go away. Those trying to reach other cities still had a chance to re-route their flights through somewhere else. But as for the Denver-only people, "You have no reason to be here," Yu said. "But I've already waited in line for three and a half hours!" protested Meagan O'Brien, a language teacher from Tokyo. "But... are we going to be there by Christmas?" asked Brian Leonard of N= ew Zealand, who was traveling with his wife, Pam. "I don't know," Yu said. "Can we drive there?" Leonard asked. "How are the roads?" Leonard looked flustered, and Pam Leonard leaned over and told her husba= nd that she didn't much like that idea anyway. "I'm not going to drive here," she told him. "They drive on the wrong side of the road." The Associated Press contributed to this report. E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --------------------------------------------------= -------------------- Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle