Thousands of US flights cancelled after ground stop, passengers spend night at airports
Travelers across the United States were still feeling the frustrating, plan-ruining aftershocks on Saturday morning of the ground stop that halted air travel for hours on Friday. Thousands of flights were cancelled and many passengers remained stranded.
Some spent a night of fitful sleep on airport floors, and even on Saturday morning their wait was not over.
Jasmine Harp, a passenger at Kennedy International Airport in New York, said: 'I've been right here for 20 hours. I have not showered, I have not slept. It's torture.'
Harp, 25, was going on 48 hours of travel. She was trying to get home to Detroit after spending a week in Paris for her birthday.
On Friday she had just sat down in her airplane seat when the pilot told passengers to deplane. A few hours later, the flight was cancelled. She described a mad dash to the baggage claim, where passengers worked to secure their luggage. 'They just dumped everybody's bags off all at once,' she said. 'It was chaotic.'
To make matters worse, Harp had left the gate area but still had to wait for her rebooked flight, which was to depart at 3pm the next day. That meant no restaurants, no shops and, most uncomfortably, no seats. She found a luggage counter to perch on.
