Philadelphia weather, staff shortages blamed for dozens of American Airlines cancellations, PHL airport delays

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Dozens of flights were canceled and delayed Sunday at Philadelphia International Airport.

The vast majority of these were American Airlines flights.

Many people ended up camping and sleeping on the ground at PHL.

Sunday night’s erratic weather certainly played a role, but it turned out that most of these issues involved American Airlines, resulting in hundreds and hundreds of frustrated travelers.

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Regina Carini, from Connecticut, has been trying to get to Salt Lake City since Sunday. She says she missed a wedding and is having trouble getting reimbursed for her car rental and hotel.

While it’s unclear why American Airlines’ operations were hit so hard, customers we spoke with say it appears to have been a perfect storm of bad weather, understaffing and poor communication .

Kayla Hayden was supposed to fly to Seattle on Sunday to take an ocean cruise to Alaska with her family that leaves Tuesday. Not only does she not know if she will make it, but she has no idea where her luggage is.

“We don’t have any clothes. I don’t have any of my bags. Two of them are on a flight to Seattle. I don’t know which ones are in Seattle and which ones are lost here.”

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Meanwhile, Keith Johnson and Kayla Renart just want to go home to Phoenix.

“So, I had a manager and I was like, ‘Hey, I understand we can’t get a flight off the ground right now, but what are we supposed to do?’ He responds: “It’s a rhetorical question. » And I say, “No, it’s a pretty direct question, like: what are we supposed to do?” And he said, “That’s a rhetorical question.” And then I hung up,” Johnson recalled.

Action News received an update email from American Airlines, which basically says their baggage services are at full capacity on Monday and they expect everything to be resolved over the next few hours.

Another reason for these problems is the large number of travelers across the country on Sunday.

The TSA announced that it broke the record for the most people screened in a single day, with 2.99 million people screened on Sunday alone.