By James Pilcher
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport was relatively unaffected Friday by the blackout that stranded thousands of passengers across the nation, airline officials said.

Delta Air Lines said its local hub - the Atlanta-based carrier's second-largest - had fewer than 10 cancellations Friday through about 5 p.m. Those were mostly in the morning to Detroit and New York's John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.

Comair had to cancel 90 flights Thursday night and Friday morning through its system, but both airlines said their intricately timed schedules were minimally affected.

This past winter's East Coast snowstorms had more effect on the system locally than Thursday's power outages.

"While we regret any inconvenience caused by the power outage to our customers and we truly empathize with those passengers, the outages did not have a major impact on our operations in either Cincinnati or Atlanta," Delta spokesman John Kennedy said.

As of late Friday, all airports except LaGuardia and JFK were operating normally. Those two were accepting some flights, but no flights were leaving, since power was not on inside the terminal to process passengers and baggage. The New York area's other major airport, Newark, was operating normally.

"We're telling people in New York not to even go to the airport," Kennedy said. He added that Delta was allowing anyone whose flight was canceled because of the blackout to change tickets to travel in the next 14 days without the normal change fees. Most airlines nationwide also are adopting such a policy.

For those caught in such circumstances, airline officials and travel agents alike said the top piece of advice is to call ahead or check the airline's Web site to update the status of their flight.

"We try to determine the client's level of frustration and need to get to their destination," said Michael Geraci, owner of the Wyoming branch of Carlson Wagonlit Travel. "We try and tell them, go with the flow."

Geraci's counterpart at the Montgomery branch of Carlson Wagonlit said she was able to get a group of travelers home Thursday night from Detroit using the Greyhound bus system.

"We've had people get rental cars and backup hotels, and we even have a deal with a limo service to be able to get people home," branch owner Tonja Wilson said.

Vicky Mary, owner of Hyde Park's Victoria Travel, said passengers should learn the rules and stick up for their rights, adding that many people don't know that an airline may be required to book them on another carrier or even owe them a hotel room in the case of a stranding.

E-mail jpilcher@enquirer.com