The lines at the Frontier ticket counter were at least 3 hours long around noon, and the situation was deteriorating for passengers trying to get out ahead of the storm.

Recognizing that thousands of passengers were ready to miss their flights, Frontier agents tried to cull the long lines. They created one "close connections" line for people who only had 1.5 hours to make their flights.

The agents tried to get those people to form a separate line. They tried yelling "Follow me" to the line, but without bullhorns it was hard to communicate with passengers.

Agents also tried to tell people in line who didn't have a confirmed seat to go to another part of terminal for rebooking for another day.

Frontier has already canceled 60 flights scheduled to leave Friday evening.

Frontier spokesman Joe Hodas said the airline is still advising people with confirmed seats to come to DIA at least 4 hours early. He advised those with only carry-on luggage to print out a boarding pass online so they could avoid the ticket counter.

"Don't come out here if you don't have a confirmed seat," Hodas said.

Virginia Reinhardt of Fulton, Mo., had played it just right. "I allowed four hours," she said. After waiting two hours, she was close to the front of the line.

She was visiting her son's family in Littleton, but because of last week's storm, she arrived four days late.


She was hoping to fly into Kansas City on Thursday.

"I think I'll make it," she said of her 2:55 flight.

On Thursday evening a United spokeswoman said the airline had canceled 75 departures scheduled from Friday morning until noon.

At around 8 p.m. Thursday evening, flights were still dribbling in and out of DIA. The airport had its four north and south runways in operation.

But for the second time in eight days, officials were supplying cots to travelers who planned to spend the night at the airport.

Peg and Tom Clune, of Westminster, arrived Thursday afternoon in an attempt to fly standby to Seattle, where they planned to attend a family reunion at their son's house. The Clunes had confirmed seats on a Frontier flight at noon today. And then their standby option didn't pan out, they accepted a Red Cross cot to sleep in the terminal overnight.

Nearby, Leslie Foley, of San Francisco, had another cot. She, like so many other passengers, missed her Thursday flight home due to the long lines at check-in.