Thousands of passengers stranded at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport for the third day feel hopeless in making it to their destination to celebrate the New Year, RIA Novosti reported.
Thousands of passengers remain stranded at Sheremetyevo and another Moscow airport, Domodedovo, following an ice storm that hit the entire territory of Central Russia over the weekend. Hundreds of flights have been canceled and delayed as severe freezing rain caused serious power outages. Some 20,000 airline travelers have been affected by the weather.
Aeroflot has canceled dozens of flights and reportedly failed to provide adequate services and information to thousands of passengers stranded at Sheremetyevo.
"The passengers remain calm, many of them are sitting and even lying on baggage carts. Still others are joking that they are ready to celebrate the New Year on the floor in the waiting lounge," a stranded passenger told RIA Novosti.
"There is absolutely no information. Nobody is explaining anything...they say they don't have planes but if you go upstairs to the fourth floor, you can see a bunch of Aeroflot jets on the tarmac," a passenger, Behdad, who is desperately waiting for his flight to Tehran, said.
Another troubled tourist, Timur, who has been waiting for his flight to Azerbaijan's capital of Baku said there was a drunk man leaving for Thailand who was playing up to the crowd and attempted to take Aeroflot officials hostage. Then the "funny" man got into a scuffle with policemen, who however were very polite and pleasant," Timur said.