The head of United Airlines, in a strongly worded memo to staff, blamed the FAA’s air traffic controller staffing problems for “unprecedented challenges” this past weekend that impacted “over 150,000 customers on United alone.” That adds to the problem, making it difficult for the system to handle disruptions caused by bad weather, and for passengers to find seats on new flights when their original flight is canceled.
While weather is part of the reason for the problem, a lack of adequate staffing at the air traffic control centers run by the Federal Aviation Administration and a lack of capacity at US airlines also come into play. Since travel problems started to mount on Saturday there have been more than 5,000 flights to, from or within the United States canceled according to FlightAware’s midday stats at midday Tuesday, and another 28,500 delayed. Some of these afternoon storms could produce damaging wind gusts, and heavy rain from these storms could produce isolated instances of flash flooding, particularly over parts of southeastern New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Scattered thunderstorms are again expected east of a cold front from the Mid-Atlantic into parts of the Northeast, leading to the possibility of even more flight delays and cancellations later. A level 3 of 5 threat, of severe weather, is highlighted for parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, including Wichita and Tulsa. The majority of people at risk are located in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington, DC, where a Level 1 of 5 threat has been issued by the Storm Prediction Center. More than 40 million people in the Northeast and Central Plains are at risk of severe storms on Tuesday. There were 17 airports spread across the country, from San Francisco to Orlando, which had at least 20% of their flights delayed according to FlightAware. But the problems weren’t limited to the Northeast. The four US airports most affected Tuesday afternoon are all major hubs for either United or Delta: New Jersey’s Newark Liberty, both of New York City’s airports (LaGuardia and John F. Republic Airways, which operates feeder flights for American Airlines, Delta and United, had 35% of its schedule canceled (333 flights).
About 16% of its schedule, or 467 flights, was canceled and another 37%, or 1,062 flights, was delayed just before 6 pm ET. United Airlines was once again faring the worst of the US domestic airlines. Msowoya told CNN his family decided to take a train back home to Boston after spending three days in Newark airport. We stood in line for 6 hours at luggage claim only to be told that they won’t be giving anyone their luggage and they should file a claim and pray and hope that their luggage gets delivered to them,” Msowoya said.
We didn’t get any help and later tried to get our bags to cancel the trip. “We had to go to the customer service line, which had taken us 10 hours the previous day. Msowoya said his family was eventually booked on another United Airlines flight that was scheduled to take off Monday evening, but it was also canceled. Msowoya told CNN that his United Airlines flight from Boston to Newark airport was delayed Sunday, which caused him and his family to miss their connecting United Airline flight from Newark to Johannesburg. By Chris Isidore and Jordan Valinksy | CNNĬlaude Ronnie Msowoya and his family spent three days trying to get to Johannesburg, South Africa, only to be forced to return home by train, without his baggage.
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