Airport back to normal after passenger chaos

Delayed flights were scheduled to take off at Xinzheng International Airport as the snow stopped falling in Zhengzhou Friday afternoon, much to the relief of the airport's tired staffers and stranded passengers.

On Thursday, posts on social media, including Sina Weibo and Wechat, reported that angry passengers had smashed computers and airline check-in desks due to the long delay of their flights. Photos of crowds thronging the check-in desks also were being widely circulated.

Zhu Junqiang, head of the police station at the Zhengzhou airport, said most of the passengers adjusted to the inconveniences caused by the bad weather, but some individuals became agitated.

"A passenger threw a bottle of water at the flight information board at a check-in desk. But there was no conflict, and it was hardly a riot, as has been circulated on social media," Zhu said.

As to the incident of a passenger pouring a beverage on a customer service clerk, Zhu said that was a separate case that happened a day earlier.

Hu Xiaoyu, the clerk in question, told Henan Business Daily that she felt bad for the passengers, but there was little she could do about the weather-caused delays.

According to one flier, "Some passengers are quite upset because the delay was too long".

"It felt like an eternity waiting in the lounge, knowing nothing about when we could board the flight," said Liu Chunxia, 35, of Wuhan, who was at the airport on Thursday afternoon.

She added that police were called to calm the passengers.

The airport was in the spotlight after accidents and snowstorms caused it to be closed several times starting Tuesday night, stranding a large number of passengers who were returning from the Spring Festival holidays.

A plane with 44 people aboard nose-dived to the ground while taxiing due to a landing gear malfunction Tuesday night, which, though no one was injured, closed the airport for several hours.

The airport also was shut down three times on Wednesday because of heavy snow blocking runways and again for five-and-a-half hours on Thursday, delaying some 50 flights and affecting more than 2,000 passengers.

Zhengzhou airport had resumed normal operations by Friday afternoon, the airport announced in a statement.

China's Lunar New Year is the country's most important festival, and the weeklong holiday is a period marked by the year's most intensive mass migration as folks travel between home and work.

It was estimated that some 3.6 billion trips would be made between Jan 14 and Feb 14, 200 million more than last year, Xinhua reported.

About 3.2 billion trips will be made by buses or cars, 258 million by trains, 43 million by sea and 42 million by air.

On Thursday, sections of 69 expressways were closed due to heavy snow.

"The 120-kilometer trip, which usually takes only two hours, cost me six hours on Thursday," said Chen Lu, who traveled from Taizhou to Wuxi in Jiangsu province.

There will be another surge of traffic on Feb 14, when migrant workers who stayed home until the end of the 15-day Spring Festival holidays return to work, and college students go back to school as the new term begins, Xinhua said.