The travel disruptions started Tuesday morning when storms packing more than 85-mile-per-hour winds hit the airport and the region.
DALLAS — For much of the week, DFW Airport has been filled with frustrated passengers like Cathy Boothman, waiting in long customer service lines.
“I’m going to cry,” Boothman said. “We had a cruise for my husband’s 70th birthday that we were going to go on out of Seattle.”
Instead – she and droves of others are dealing with flight cancellations and delays, preventing them from getting to their final destinations. Boothman and her husband won’t make that cruise, and will have to rebook for another date.
“It’s so many people that are just stranded and without bags and it’s not good,” Boothman said.
The travel disruptions started Tuesday morning when storms packing more than 85-mile-per-hour winds hit the airport and the region. And continued as more storms blew in through the week.
The severe weather has kept Robert Baxter from getting home to Buffalo, New York for three days and counting.
“It’s utterly, very frustrating and I’m hoping I can get home,” Baxter said. “Like I can’t escape from this place.”
It’s caused others like Stinson Jones, who lives In Fort Worth, to cancel their trips altogether.
“There wasn’t any other choice I was going to miss the graduation,” Jones said.
So the proud grandpa cancelled his flight to Washington D.C. to see his granddaughter walk the stage. And to make matters worse, the airline can’t seem to find his bag.
“I’m here right now and I’m standing in another line to see if my luggage has come back so I can take it home with me,” Jones said.
Thursday DFW Airport was #1 in the world for flight delays and cancellations. And even as Friday brought clear skies, airlines are still struggling to play catch up.
“They told us they didn’t have enough flight attendants to make the flight. The flight next to us, I heard the same thing coming, that there were not enough flight attendants, supposedly they had pilots,” said Boothman.
Fort Worth-based American Airlines is the hardest hit. The carrier says it’s working hard to recover and get crews and aircraft back where they need to be, but it will take some time.