'Everything Went Very Smoothly': Passengers Describe Tulsa Airport Travel Experience From Holiday Destinations

Now that Christmas is over, many people are flying back from seeing family, like Kevin Weakly, who’s traveling from Columbus.

“Had a gentleman welcome us to Tulsa once I got off the gate in the Tulsa airport, so…very friendly airport,” Weakly said.

It’s an airport Weakly is familiar with. He lives in Bentonville, Arkansas, and doesn't mind the two-and-a-half-hour drive home. While there is an airport there, he says Tulsa has more airline options.

“I’ve flown through Tulsa many times, I just really enjoy Southwest Airlines, they do a great job,” he said. 

Even retrieving his bags was an easy process.

“Saw two of my bags and got them fairly quickly…within a few minutes,” he said.

But for Kori Ferguson, that wasn’t the case.

“The flight from Chicago here was great, we ended up getting here really early but now we’ve been standing here for almost an hour waiting on our bags,” she said.

She’s been flying since 9:00 Christmas night, after spending Christmas with her sister in Anchorage, Alaska. After a stop in Chicago, and before a drive to Ponca City to visit her parents, a jammed baggage carousel is the last thing she wants to be dealing with.

“I’m like ‘Great I’m home’, my brother-in-law’s waiting to pick me up and he’s got kids in the car, and I’m just like, I’m ready to go home,” she said. 

But, an hour and a half later, airport staff took matters into their own hands and hand-delivered the passengers their bags. Ferguson says besides this little hiccup and minor airport crowds, traveling during the holiday at Tulsa International was a breeze.

 “I honestly didn’t expect my flights last night on Christmas to be so full, but I think it went super smooth,” she said. 

Weakly agrees.

“No delays on Southwest Airlines out of Columbus, and then the transfer through Saint Louis to Tulsa, so everything went very smoothly,” he said.