U.S. flight delays continue two days after FAA nationwide ground stop
Flight disruptions continued on Sunday, two days after the Federal Aviation Administration halted all U.S. departures for more than four hours, as airlines still struggled to reposition passengers and crews. FlightAware data at 7 a.m. ET showed more than 1,600 U.S. flights canceled and nearly 1,400 delayed — well below Saturday’s roughly 6,700 cancellations, and far from the more than 9,200 cancellations reported on the Sunday of the nationwide halt. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy linked the outage to a router and work replacing copper wiring with fiber optics; FAA administrator Bryan Bedford described the switch as routine maintenance.
Carriers waived change fees and fare differences and offered extra pay to pilots and flight attendants. Travelers still faced long waits and improvised routing. Beth Martin, trying to get home to Birmingham, Alabama, from New York’s LaGuardia with her daughter after a birthday trip, had been booked Saturday night on Delta. After delays, they walked in Central Park and shopped on Fifth Avenue; when the flight was canceled, a $700 extra hotel night and a grim standby list left them sleeping in wheelchairs outside security. Delta later booked them to Memphis, with her husband driving four hours from Birmingham to meet them.
Justine Fritz, in New York for a Friday business event, tried five flights after her Saturday trip was canceled and finally boarded a Houston flight four hours out of her way to reach Minneapolis. She said TSA initially would not let her through because of the stack of boarding passes. Customers told CNBC they were rebooked repeatedly before getting airborne.
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