INDIANAPOLIS —  Sarah Beavers scrambled to find another flight to Hawaii as she stood near her wedding dress and piles of luggage at Los Angeles International Airport.

The 23-year-old and her fiance, Charlie Winder, arrived at the airport Thursday to find their 7 a.m. ATA flight canceled by the airline's latest bankruptcy.

That stranded their wedding party of 11 people.

"I can't believe no one has talked to us," she said as she worked her cell phone.

"They would probably be scared (to talk to us)," Winder responded.

ATA left frustrated travelers scattered around the country Thursday after it abruptly shut down operations at 4 a.m. Several passengers trying to reach Mexico wound up stuck at Chicago's Midway International Airport.

"It ruins my vacation," said Beatrice Martinez, who was trying to reach Guadalajara, Mexico. "I'm in shock. So I guess I'll try to make other arrangements. Right now I just need to get to Mexico."

Lisa Kendrick, 56, of Oakley, Calif., didn't learn until she was unloading her bags at the curb at Oakland International Airport that her flight had been canceled.

"No one called us. I confirmed everything yesterday," she said. "We had no clue."

The ATA counter in Los Angeles was deserted Thursday. It had a sign on it that read, in part, "We regret the inconvenience caused by the sudden shutdown of ATA."

Once the nation's 10th-largest air carrier, ATA entered bankruptcy for the second time in just over three years on Wednesday. The company had more than 2,200 employees, and "virtually all" were told that their jobs were gone, company spokesman Michael Freitag said.

About 10,000 passengers flew ATA each day when operations were shut down, according to the airline's Web site.

Airlines often fail with little warning to passengers because executives are trying to line up financing until the end, said George Godlin, an analyst for Moody's Investor Service.

"I don't think there's any concerted effort on the part of senior management to simply strand passengers or to treat them disrespectfully or anything else like that," he said.

Some also give little notice under these circumstances in order to preserve what business they have left, said Michael Boyd, president of The Boyd Group, an aviation consulting firm.

"If you say, 'In three weeks we're ... going to be shutting down,' who's going to buy a ticket for next week?" Boyd said. "You don't trust them for tomorrow if they say they're going to be gone in three weeks."

ATA's customers may have few options for getting their money back.

The defunct airline's Web site tells those who bought tickets with plastic to contact their credit card companies for refund information. The company won't provide refunds to passengers who used cash or a check.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is trying to help. It operated a code-sharing agreement with ATA for flights to Hawaii.

The airline estimates that between 35,000 and 40,000 passengers made reservations through August for ATA flights through Southwest, spokeswoman Brandy King said.

Southwest said Thursday that it immediately began rebooking passengers. Those with travel plans in the next 14 days will be priorities.

Other passengers are left to fend for themselves.

Kendrick, who also was traveling to Hawaii, said a nephew who works for United found room on a flight out of Sacramento on Friday for $1,000 a ticket.

Beavers and Winder eventually landed Sunday flights out of Las Vegas for $1,300 apiece. That would put them in Maui the day before their wedding.

Their ATA tickets had cost only $350.

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Associated Press writers Solvej Schou in Los Angeles and Marcus Wohlsen in Oakland, Calif., and AP Videographer Mark Carlson in Chicago contributed to this report.

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