BATON ROUGE — The Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport allowed planes to take off starting Thursday morning after suspending flights for the last two days due to unprecedented snowfall and winter weather.One chartered flight was filled with royalty headed straight for Washington D.C.Festival queens from around the state flew out of BTR and straight to the nation's capital for the annual Washington Mardi Gras."We were supposed to fly out yesterday... but we actually were snowed in. Some of us got here Monday night, so a little early to try to prevent having to drive through the ice," Alexis Lee, Queen of the Strawberry Festival, said.The young women serve on the Mystick Krewe of Louisianians' court.The Krewe Senior Lieutenant Mark Ackal says that every year, 3,000 people fly into D.C. for the festivities this weekend."Well naturally we've had a number of people change flights... but the party is still going on," Ackal said.Ackal says this is not the first time the Krewe has had to work around cold weather."We've had a huge snowstorm in D.C. one year some years ago and everything went as planned," Ackal said. "We never anticipated we'd have a snowstorm in Louisiana."The airport spent hours clearing the runway on Wednesday to return to business as usual. Thankfully, the queens' flight was able to take off right on time Thursday morning."We were just crossing our fingers the entire time. It was kind of hard to sleep because I was just so ready to get on this airplane and go to D.C.," Lee said.Even though they were delayed by one day, Ackal says they haven't missed much."The main bulk of what happens in D.C. Mardi Gras begins (Thursday)," Ackal said. "So timing is perfect for us to be there today."The Washington Mardi Gras ball is on Saturday.Permalink| Comments