HUNDREDS of thousands of spring breakers were stranded at airports across America this weekend as major airlines experienced serious travel trouble.
Around 15,000 domestic flights were either canceled or delayed on Saturday and Sunday due to bad weather and technical issues, according to flight trackers.
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On Saturday alone, 6,049 flights within, into, or out of the United States. were delayed, and 1,934 were canceled, according to FlightAware.
The tracker reported that Sunday had fewer disruptions, but still went up to 5,864 flights delayed and 1,659 flights canceled.
That totals to a number of 15,506 total flights that were either delayed or canceled on Saturday and Sunday.
Orlando International Airport and Miami International Airport were the two airports with the highest number of delays and cancellations in scheduled flights.
In the case of Southwest Airlines, technology issues started the delays on Saturday morning, before weather and air traffic control delays in Florida caused the issues to continue into the evening.
“Planned, overnight technology maintenance Friday into Saturday delayed some of our earliest flights on Saturday morning, and canceled a total seven flights,” a spokesperson for Southwest said.
“Those were atop of the 180+ flights that had been proactively canceled ahead of Saturday due to expected challenges with weather and airspace congestion in Central Florida.”
The airline explained that lightning from Florida storms forced crews to pause ramp operations at multiple airports in the state, bringing additional delays.
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Southwest ended Saturday with about 600 canceled flights out of the planned 3,600 departures.
“Nearly all of those traced back directly to weather and/or airspace management programs.”
The delayed and canceled flights on Sunday were mostly issued proactively due to Saturday’s disruptions, the company said.
Most major airlines like United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Airlines have released statements attributing the delays to the intense weekend storms.
“Thanks to the safety-focused work of Delta people, our operation recovered on Sunday from severe Florida weather and Air Traffic Control-driven traffic restrictions earlier in the weekend,” a spokesperson for Delta said.
United Airlines and American Airlines did not immediately respond to The Sun’s request for comment.
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