This past weekend was a family reunion in Dallas. Family members traveled from several different airports into DFW. Boy, do we have stories. Almost everyone was impacted.
DW and I, along with our children and their families, were lucky. We all flew United and were not affected. Another brother and his family, flying in and out of Newark (I forget which airline) also did not encounter problems.
However, some of the "highlights":
Family coming in from Georgia (Delta) had some problems. The ones who flew in Thursday were fine. Those who flew in Friday had flights cancelled and pushed back, a couple into Saturday. One niece sadly saw her Friday afternoon flight get cancelled and rescheduled for 8AM Saturday. She got to the airport at 5:30AM, only to find it cancelled and rescheduled and pushed back and on plane then off the plane... eventually it got moved to Sunday afternoon, which would not work for her as she had to be back home Sunday evening. So after almost 16 hours at the airport trying to get a flight, she had to miss the reunion.
Everyone going back thru Atlanta had flights cancelled and rescheduled at least twice. Some who were scheduled to leave around noon Monday did not leave until late that night. Two nephews and their spouses, which original flights scheduled for 1PM Sunday, had cancellations and could not leave until around 6PM Monday.
A brother and family scheduled to fly back to JFK (Delta) had their flight cancelled as they arrived at the airport, and were on "standby" for rescheduling. My brother rebooked with AA and left5 hours later but had to fly into into a different NYC area airport. He contacted Delta, they offered him a credit for a future flight, he said are you crazy I want a refund, they finally agreed.
A sister and BIL encountered a 12 hour+ delay on Monday (American), their original flight to JFK was scheduled for 6:30AM but did not leave until almost 7pm.
A sister and her family flying to and from Philly (American) had their flight cancelled at the airport and ended up getting into DFW 8 hours later, too late for any of the reunion Friday activities. For their return, they were on the plane 1PM Monday about to depart on time, then waited a couple of hours and then everyone had to deplane due to the crew time working clock expiring. They never got onto another flight until around 10PM.
Another niece, flying back into LGA (Delta) on Monday had her planed diverted to Detroit. After spending the night there she still was not rebooked on a return flight at all Tuesday morning. She ended up renting a car and driving to Pittsburgh to catch a return flight back. She finally returned home Tuesday night.
The reunion was well worth it, but the flight situation was crazy. We have a family group chat and the text messages were flying fast and furious. But, we tried to maintain good humor. With the hotel, and a niece and nephew-in-law with a large house, both within 10-15 minutes of the airport, no one had to spend the night at DFW. and said "well, if we are going to be stuck somewhere, at least it is with family we do not get to see oftern these days."
