CERAWEEK-Chaos at Houston airport has attendees scrambling as big energy confab winds down

By Amanda Stephenson, Liz Hampton and Nathan Crooks

HOUSTON, March 25 (Reuters) - While the most pressing question facing thousands of oil industry executives at CERAWeek in Houston is when the Strait of Hormuz will re-open, many who plan to head home Thursday or Friday are also keeping a close eye on the massive security lines plaguing the city's largest airport.

The George Bush Intercontinental Airport has become an unfortunate front line of the partial government shutdown, which has led to staffing shortages at some airports around the country.

Videos circulating on social media have shown serpentine lines and travelers sleeping on the ground, with wait times to get through security surpassing four hours. On Wednesday morning, lines were long, but moving, with a wait time of two hours at a Terminal E TSA checkpoint.

The annual week-long energy conference - the biggest in the industry - has drawn over 10,000 people from more than 80 countries to America's fourth-largest city, where the worst travel hassles have historically been contained to congestion on the infamous multi-lane ring highways encircling Houston.

Now, many attendees from out of town are scrambling to find another route home. Some are rebooking out of Houston's smaller William P. Hobby Airport; others are renting cars and driving to Dallas or San Antonio, where lines are reportedly shorter.

Michael Gullo, vice-president of policy with the Business Council of Canada, was scheduled to fly out of Houston back to his home in Ottawa on Wednesday. But he and a colleague made the decision Tuesday evening to cancel their flights, rebooking out of Austin instead and renting a car to do the 2-1/2-hour drive to that airport Wednesday afternoon.

“We needed to get home tonight, and it wasn’t entirely sure that would be possible from Houston,” Gullo said.

One conference attendee, who declined to be named, said they had considered driving to Dallas before flying back to Mexico City but decided that might take just as long.

They were evaluating switching airlines and possibly departing from the Hobby Airport, which had a shorter wait time.

Even leaders of multi-billion-dollar companies are not immune to the chaos.

Pedro Pizarro, CEO of utility company Edison International EIX.N, said he considered shifting travel plans to Hobby, but ultimately decided to take his chances on George Bush Intercontinental.

Pizarro's demanding travel schedule gives him status that should help him skip the worst of the lines when it comes time to leave Houston. But as he stood in line for an afternoon coffee at the conference, he said a private jet was not in his plans.

"I always fly commercial," he said.