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Blizzard having ripple effect on Indianapolis airport

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The major storm hitting the east coast is having an effect on other cities, airports in particular.

In Indianapolis, there aren’t many delays, but the airport has become a parking lot for airplanes.

Airport officials said that the airlines had enough warning before this storm hit to prepare.

Many of them are sending empty planes to Indy to get them out of the bad weather.

For once, Indianapolis has some of the better weather in this whole region.

So this weekend the airport will host at least 40 planes that have been grounded due to weather.

There will be parked planes from passenger airlines as well as cargo planes like those for FedEx.

Parking the planes here helps avoid dangerous ice that layers the planes.

The Indianapolis Airport Sr. Director of Operations said it is incredibly expensive to de-ice airplanes.

And with the amount of sheer ice that’s predicted for the eastern region, it’s more cost effective for the airlines to fly the planes here to wait out the storm.

“It could run anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 per airplane with conditions they have out on the east coast,” Michael Medvescek said, “It’s better to move them out and fly them into an airport that’s free of the storm.”

He also said this is actually pretty common because of how centrally located his airport is within the country.

The crews will stay in Indianapolis overnight and then the airlines will reevaluate tomorrow.

The airport has enough room for about 60 large commercial airplanes to be parked at one time.