Rain brings some delays for holiday travelers

PHILADELPHIA -- The rainy weather brought some delays but it was mostly smooth sailing for commuters traveling on Christmas Eve.

Whitney Parks and her little girl arrived from rain soaked Boston on time.

"It was fine - no delays," said Parks.

But a flight from Los Angeles was held on the ground by the FAA because of weather conditions here.

"We were on ground hold for about 20 minutes so we were about 20 minutes late coming in today. It wasn't bad at all, just waiting for the bags," said Lindsey Kancher.

Limited visibility and a low ceiling delayed as many as 25 percent of departures on Wednesday afternoon.

The delays ranged from a few minutes to more than an hour.

Oddly it helped that it was Christmas Eve. Unlike the day before Thanksgiving, it is not a huge travel day, and airlines actually cut back on the number of their flights.

U.S. Airways cut its schedule here by 18 percent compared to a normal Wednesday.

"There were a lot of flights yesterday and there's many flights this morning, now in the afternoon and the evening, they've been cut back," said Mary Flannery, Philadelphia International Airport.

Still thousands of people traveled through Philadelphia on Christmas Eve and they all had their own unique plans for Christmas.

"We are going to Tampa. We're gonna stay in the Florida area for two days and then we're going on a cruise," said Lori Stoddart.

"I am going to go home and make cookies and eat ice cream," said Kate Reardon.

"We will be in the air, we are flying to Germany - to Munich - to see family and vacation," said Alex Kogan.

According to AAA Mid-Atlantic, travel is up 5 percent over last year and about 69,000 are expected to travel by air.