News

Actions

'We want to go home.' July Fourth weekend travelers met with delays, cancelations at airports

Posted at 7:11 AM, Jul 04, 2022
and last updated 2022-07-04 08:11:09-04

(WXYZ) — The record-breaking weekend for travel was met with delays and cancelations at airports nationwide.

RELATED: Travelers beware: Flight delays, cancelations, and busy roads are expected this July 4 weekend

According to FlightAware, more than 930 flights within, into, or out of the U.S. were delayed on Sunday morning. More than 200 flights were canceled.

The airport chaos kept flyers like Alex Logan of Michigan on their toes. Logan was stuck in Boston.

"We got delayed on our first flight and we had to switch flights and we're hoping it doesn't happen again because we have stuff to do and we want to go home," he said.

Over the weekend there were over 15,000 flight delays with about 1,500 canceled flights. Airport terminals were packed with frustrated travelers. Some say they waited hours to be rebooked onto a new flight.

According to AAA nearly 47 million people were expected to be traveling over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. 3 million of those travelers are flyers.

"A lot of taxpayer support went to these airlines over the last couple of years to prevent layoffs, but we saw a lot of people nugged into retirement and that's something that has left the airlines unprepared," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.

American Airlines was also faced with a computer glitch that allowed pilots to drop their scheduled flights.

Meanwhile, Delta Airlines is dealing with their own pilot strike.

RELATED: Delta pilots across the country picketing at Delta hub airports

On Monday, July 4, things had slowed down at the DTW airport. On Monday morning, there were only about 300 delays and over 100 cancellations.