Passengers stranded as thousands of flights canceled or delayed
It was not a happy scene for flyers at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport after more than 10,000 flights were disrupted over the weekend. While airlines blamed the weather, passengers weren’t so convinced.
ROMULUS, Mich. (FOX 2) – The typical headaches that come with traveling during spring break likely turned into migraines for many travelers this weekend following the cancellation or delay of some 16,000 flights in the United States.
In Detroit, a few lost travelers hoped to find a way home aboard carriers plagued by bad weather and technical difficulties on Saturday and Sunday.
“Well, I booked a round trip ticket about two weeks ago to Utah to ski with my family. We had kids, my dad, a group of people and on the way back they basically canceled our ticket from Utah to Florida,” said Peter, who had booked return flights aboard Spirit Airlines.
According to Peter, Spirit told him that it was bad weather that had tripped up his return trip. But he’s not so sure.
“First of all, I’m from Florida, my mom is in Florida, and I can watch live weather radar and it’s sunny. They kept mentioning Tropical Storm Cindy, but Cindy doesn’t exist. It’s from 2017, so I’m not sure what’s going on,” he said.
According to FlightAware, which tracks flights, nearly 5,000 flights were delayed on Monday and 2,190 were canceled. Yesterday, 13,899 flights were delayed and 3,712 were cancelled.
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Southwest Airlines, one of the nation’s largest domestic travel options, said it canceled flights due to “disruptions to” its network.
Spirit Airlines said 27% of its flights were still canceled on Monday. Some 308 flights had been canceled by the company on Sunday.
