File Photo: Data from FlightAware showed more than 5,400 flights within, to or from the United States were delayed and more than 1,600 were canceled as of Tuesday afternoon.
By Chris Isidore and Jordan Valinsy | CNN
Claude Ronnie Msowoya and his family spent three days trying to get to Johannesburg, South Africa, but had to return home by train with no luggage.
Msowoya told CNN that his United Airlines flight from Boston to Newark Airport was delayed on Sunday, causing him and his family to miss their connecting United Airlines flight from Newark to Johannesburg.
Msowoya said his family ended up being booked on another United Airlines flight due to depart Monday night, which was also cancelled.
“We had to go to customer service, which took us 10 hours the day before. We didn’t get any help and later tried to get our luggage to cancel the trip. “We stood in line at baggage claim for six hours just to be told that they would not give anyone their bags and that they should file a claim and pray and hope that their bags would be delivered to them,” Msowoya said.
Msowoya told CNN that his family decided to take the train back to Boston after spending three days at Newark Airport.
His story was hardly unique. The restrictions on air travelers continued on Tuesday for the fourth day. More than 7,000 flights in the United States have been delayed or canceled after powerful storms swept across parts of the country, including the mid-Atlantic and parts of the Northeast, where many busy hubs are located.
FlightAware data showed that as of Tuesday afternoon, more than 5,400 flights within, to or from the United States were delayed and more than 1,600 were cancelled. Still, that’s a significant drop from Monday’s chaos, when more than 11,000 flights were either delayed or canceled due to severe weather and air traffic control staffing problems.
United Airlines was again the worst performer among US domestic carriers. Approximately 16% of the flight schedule or 467 flights were canceled and another 37% or 1,062 flights were delayed just before 6pm ET. Republic Airways, which operates feeder flights for American Airlines, Delta and United, has had 35% of its schedule canceled (333 flights).
The four US airports hardest hit Tuesday afternoon are all major hubs for United or Delta: Newark Liberty in New Jersey, both New York City airports (LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy) and Logan in Boston. But the problems weren’t just limited to the Northeast. According to FlightAware, there were 17 airports across the country, from San Francisco to Orlando, that had at least 20% of their flights delayed.
More than 40 million people in the Northeast and Central Plains are at risk from severe storms on Tuesday. Most people at risk are in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington, DC, where the Storm Prediction Center has issued a Level 1 out of 5 threat. Parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, including Wichita and Tulsa, have a Level 3 out of 5 severe weather risk.
Isolated thunderstorms are again expected east of a cold front from the mid-Atlantic to parts of the northeast, which can later lead to even more flight delays and cancellations.
Some of these afternoon storms could produce damaging gusts of wind, and heavy rains from these storms could result in isolated flash flooding, particularly over parts of southeastern New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
United’s CEO blames the FAA for the weekend’s delays
Since travel problems mounted on Saturday, more than 5,000 flights to, from or within the United States have been canceled and another 28,500 delayed, according to FlightAware’s midday statistics as of Tuesday noon.
While weather is partly to blame for the problem, understaffing at Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control centers and a lack of capacity at US airlines also play a role.
This exacerbates the problem as it makes it difficult for the system to deal with disruptions caused by inclement weather and for passengers to find seats on new flights when their original flight has been cancelled.
In a strongly worded memo to staff, the United Airlines chief blamed staffing problems at the FAA’s air traffic controllers for last weekend’s “unprecedented challenges,” which affected “over 150,000 customers at United alone.”
“The FAA frankly let us down this weekend,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in an internal company memo shared with CNN.
Kirby says the FAA cut arrival rates at its main hub, Newark Liberty International Airport, by 40 percent and departure rates by 75 percent on Saturday, which “almost certainly reflects understaffing/less experience at the FAA.” .
“This resulted in massive delays, cancellations, diversions, crews and aircraft losing their position,” Kirby said. “And that brought everyone to their heads when the weather actually hit on Sunday, and was exacerbated by staffing shortages at the FAA on Sunday night.”
Kirby says he will be meeting with the FAA and the Department of Transportation “to discuss what short-term steps the FAA can take to prevent something like this from happening again this summer.”
The FAA responded Tuesday morning, saying, “We will always work with anyone who is genuinely willing to join us to resolve an issue.”
In the memo, Kirby carefully emphasized that current FAA leadership did not cause the current personnel problem, but that it must be addressed. “To be fair, it’s not the fault of the current FAA leadership,” he wrote, but added, “They are responsible for solving the problem they inherited.”
These latest problems come at a particularly busy time. With millions of passengers packing for commercial flights for the long holiday weekend, the Transportation Security Administration expects air traffic on July 4 will be even greater than before the pandemic.
The agency expects 2.82 million people to be screened at airports nationwide on Friday, beating a post-pandemic record set on June 16 and the 2.79 million passengers screened by the TSA on July 7, 2019 becomes.
