While eight Democratic senators might have folded and made a deal with the Republicans to end the longest federal government shutdown in American history, there isn't an end in sight for the FAA-mandated 10% reduction in flights. The Federal Aviation Administration hasn't rescinded the emergency order intended to reduce the workload on understaffed and unpaid air traffic controller facilities. According to Politico, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will only lift the restriction when it's safe to do so.
We asked our readers on Friday, the start of the flight cuts, for the most frustrating stories about flight delays and cancellations up to that point. The comment section was filled with anecdotes that detailed the struggles of trying to catch a flight during crises, such as the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and the COVID-19 pandemic. There were also tales of absurd scenarios that illustrate how ill-considered commercial aviation can still be. Without further ado, here are your maddening stories:
Southwest, Christmas 2022. Due to severe winter weather their crew scheduling system was overwhelmed and crashed. Our flight was 1 of nearly 17,000 Southwest flights cancelled that week. The earliest they could re-book us was 3 days later. That same day my mom came down with COVID which meant she had to isolate during these "bonus" days with her grandchildren. As bad as it was, we didn't absolutely need to get home and were staying with family anyway. Lots of other families that week had it much worse than we did!
1984. Delayed out of Newark 23 hours. We were put up in a nearby hotel overlooking a junkyard. No dinner for us: we weren't allowed in the dining room without suit and tie. We got the last of the vending machines. But ultimately, the Cyclades made up for it and well beyond.
50 years ago. Air Mali flagged Aeroflot turboprop flying from Mopti, Mali to the capital, Bamako. Grass runway with a terminal building about the size of a 7-11. The deal was, Air Mali would sell open tickets for the route with no thought of seat counts or any of that boring airline stuff. So what happened is you arrived at the Airport before the theoretical flight was set to occur and waited. The plane would appear in the sky and land on the strip and taxi to a point a couple hundred feet from where the crowd of potential passengers were anxiously waiting. They never shut down the engines. The passenger door opened, stairs were placed and then you were off, running, waddling, as fast as your luggage allowed, because only the winners of this race got a seat on the plane. It took me two tries on sequential days.
I have an epic one from back in the late-1990s. I used to vacation up in PEI, Canada – one of the best places to recharge your batteries. Lived in Charlotte and flew up there to Charlottetown, PEI. I knew Air Canada and they were set and I think United were set to go on strike during my vacation. Once they went on strike, and this is before the Internet could fix everything with flights, I made a trip to the smallest airport I've ever seen on the island and had to make plans.
In the end, including standbys and last-second changes, it went like this: Charlottetown, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Greensboro, Charlotte.
Two airlines on strike, and a massive line of storms during some of those flights turned what was supposed to be a few hours of flying into over 2 days. Highlights? In PHL, because of the storms and strikes, USAirways was setting people up in hotels.They sent me to the Four Seasons! And I was there for, maybe 5 hours because I needed to get back there early for standby to anything in NC. And in Boston, all of our luggage was left on the tarmac during a downpour. Fun times. My sleepless night in Philly was spent drying clothes in a beautiful hotel room.
And that was when the SwissAir flight crashed outside of Halifax. Friends heard Halifax, knew I was heading there and thought I was on that flight Late-1990s communication meant I had to get to a landlines and internet computer to let people know I was fine.
I was coming home from Afghanistan on emergency leave due to a death in the family. I was on the ramp on a C-17 when the flight got cancelled. We found out it was because one of the other passengers was blabbing on Facebook about troop movements.