Shannon Worley and her 11-year-old child took their mother and daughter to New York to see “Wicked.” But their two-day vacation was unexpectedly extended on Friday, January 23, when a winter storm hit, bringing heavy rain and sleet to their home state of Texas.
American Airlines canceled the couple’s nonstop flight to the Austin area scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 24, and later canceled the first leg of a rebooked flight connecting through Miami. “My daughter is excited because we get to do all the things,” Wally, 39, told USA Today.
They spent an extra day exploring New York, strolling Fifth Avenue, stopping by Rockefeller Center, and visiting the “Stranger Things” pop-up store at the Microsoft Experience Center. They have rebooked flights for Sunday but have not yet canceled them.
Flight canceled or delayed? This is what you need to do.
“The silver lining is the extra time with my daughter,” said photographer Wally. “Then I guess what was a little nerve-wracking was being able to get home and drive home from the airport.” After speaking with USA Today, their third return flight was canceled, leaving them looking for other options.
She is not alone. The storm has disrupted thousands of U.S. flights throughout the weekend, with at least 3,800 flights canceled and more than 2,600 delayed as of 3:20 p.m. on January 24, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. More than 8,400 flights were also canceled on Sunday, January 25.
Those numbers are likely to rise as the storm continues to spread across the country.
“We will stay until everything is clear”
Jill Hayter and her husband were out of the storm’s path just in time.
As cold weather approaches, this couple from Indiana is visiting Austin, where their daughter lives. Hight was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is getting a second opinion from doctors there.
They planned to fly home to Fort Wayne, Indiana, early Saturday morning to return for a scheduled MRI on Monday, but their U.S. flight via Dallas was canceled. “Then we tried a few other flights, but all the connections were through Dallas, Atlanta or Chicago, places we couldn’t get to because we knew we didn’t want to get stuck in one of those locations or have our flight canceled again,” said Hight, 58.
They had a “snowbird house” in Florida and decided to head there, booking a direct Delta flight to Tampa and then driving about two hours to Punta Gorda. Hite plans to have an MRI in Florida instead.
“We will stay until things get back to normal.”
Nathan Diller is USA TODAY’s consumer travel reporter in Nashville. You can contact him at ndiller@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Stranded in New York, rerouted to Florida: Winter storm travel impacts