Snow subides, operations improve at Minneapolis airport

MINNEAPOLIS -- Things are slowing getting back to normal at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after a major winter storm dropped more than a foot of snow there by Monday morning. Airport spokeswoman Melissa Scovronski says the airport was down to one working runway early Monday morning but expects to open a second soon because the worst of the storm has passed. Scovronski says that should cut into the delays, which are now running more than an one hour for some flights. She says about 60 departures and 100 arrivals were canceled Monday morning, but she's not expecting more. The 12.3 inches of snow at the airport was the fourth highest total in the metro area. Eden Prairie was tops at 17 inches with Bloomington a close second at 16 inches. This weekend's airport chaos illustrates a seasonal truth: When ol' man winter decides to send a major storm system through Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport turns into a hotel-campground of sorts. With hundreds of flights cancelled or delayed, some folks had to spend the night. While they struggled to wake from an unplanned mid-winter slumber, it didn't take long Monday morning for the Lindbergh Terminal to start buzzing with people who couldn't get out, trying again. Corie Barry of Minnetonka is hoping to get to Japan sometime soon. "We were supposed to leave on a business trip yesterday to Narita, Japan connecting of course and so we spent the day trying to negotiate and then when we got here I was ...