{"id":4004,"date":"2022-04-04T19:24:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T19:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/spring-break-travel-mess-airlines-cancel-delay-12000-weekend-flights-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2022-04-04T19:24:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T19:24:06","slug":"spring-break-travel-mess-airlines-cancel-delay-12000-weekend-flights-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/04\/spring-break-travel-mess-airlines-cancel-delay-12000-weekend-flights-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring break travel mess: Airlines cancel, delay 12,000 weekend flights – USA TODAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a rough weekend for airline passengers.
Airlines canceled and delayed more than 10,000 Saturday and Sunday flights because of\u00a0storms\u00a0in Florida<\/a> and a technology issue at Southwest Airlines, stranding travelers across the country and creating long wait times to reach airline customer service. More than 3,400 flights have been canceled and 8,800\u00a0flights delayed this weekend as of 3:15 p.m. ET Sunday, according to flight tracker FlightAware<\/a>.
The flight woes come\u00a0during the busy spring break travel season and at a time when travel is surging<\/a>\u00a0because of\u00a0pent-up demand from the pandemic.
Southwest, the nation’s largest domestic carrier, was the hardest hit in terms of the number of flights. The airline canceled 520 Saturday flights, or 14% of its operation, and\u00a0398\u00a0Sunday flights.
In addition to weather, Southwest said it had intermittent technology issues early Saturday that hurt the airline.
Southwest, the nation’s largest domestic carrier, has previously said<\/a> about\u00a040% to 50% of its planes fly through Florida on any given day.
Budget airline Spirit, which has its headquarters and largest hub in Fort Lauderdale, has had the highest percentage of weekend cancellations. The airline canceled 27% of its Saturday flights and so far has canceled 27% of its Sunday flights, according to FlightAware.
BUDGET AIRLINE MERGER<\/strong>: Spirit, Frontier to merge<\/a>
JetBlue Airways\u00a0canceled 25% of its Sunday flights after canceling 15% of its flights on Saturday, according to FlightAware.
American Airlines canceled 364\u00a0Saturday flights and\u00a0211 Sunday flights.
American spokesperson Yamleque Murillo said the\u00a0airline was\u00a0still recovering from the impact of the Florida storms.
Passengers on all airlines should check their flight status before heading to the airport Sunday.
Travelers whose flights are canceled by the airline are due a refund and not just a travel credit,\u00a0regardless of the reason for a flight.\u00a0
The problem for many travelers in those situations, however, is that they still need to get home or to their destination and the refund won’t cover pricey last-minute flights on other airlines. In those cases, the only option is to accept the next available flight the airline offers, even if it’s not the same day.
Texas attorney Erin Chancellor was due to fly from Austin to Greenville, South Carolina, early Sunday for a work conference in Asheville, North Carolina.
Late Saturday, she received a text alert about a flight change. Chancellor winced when she saw the 5:15 a.m. departure, an hour earlier than her original departure time, and a later arrival due to a five-hour layover.
That wasn\u2019t the worst part.
The new flight Southwest put her on was for Monday.
\u201cI was like, oh, this definitely is not going to work,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cThe biggest day (at the conference) is tomorrow.\u2019\u2019
Chancellor, who has Southwest\u2019s top frequent flyer status, spent 90 minutes on hold with Southwest\u2019s priority customer service line before hanging up and reaching out via Twitter.
Southwest didn\u2019t have any available flight options that would get her anywhere near Asheville by late Sunday so she asked for a refund of her $350 ticket and started searching for tickets on other airlines.
The best she could find: $650 roundtrip on Delta Air Lines to Atlanta. She is spending several hours of her 37th birthday driving to Asheville.\u00a0She got one of the last available rental cars in Atlanta, but the price was steep: $600, double the price she was going to pay for a car out of Greenville.
\u201cIt\u2019s been a day,\u2019\u2019 she said.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS<\/strong>: Here’s what airlines owe you if a flight is canceled or delayed<\/a><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a rough weekend for airline passengers.Airlines canceled and delayed more than 10,000 Saturday and Sunday flights because of\u00a0storms\u00a0in Florida and a technology issue at Southwest Airlines, stranding travelers across the country and creating long wait times to reach airline customer service. More than 3,400 flights have been canceled and 8,800\u00a0flights delayed this weekend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}