Weather Delays Strand Thousands and Have a Silver Lining for One Man

Thousands of flights have been canceled at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and throughout the country, stranding travelers for days on end. (Photo: AP)

This week’s weather delays are causing problems across the country, with some travelers stranded for days on end, some until after New Year’s Eve. But for one man, there was a silver lining.

Danny Roderique was due to fly home to Phoenix, Arizona, over the weekend to propose to his girlfriend, but his flight was canceled due to weather issues. After he encountered several more flight cancellations and spent over 50 hours at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, he decided to turn the situation into a positive experience: He proposed to his girlfriend via a text message.

Roderique took a picture of the diamond ring and sent it to her with his proposal. “Marry me,” said the text. “Took me hours to pick this ring out none of them were good enough for you.”

Her answer? “Baby YES!!!!!”

Things didn’t turn out as well for travelers like Sam Kassoumeh, who was due to fly to New York City from Detroit on Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. At 11.20 p.m. on Monday night, Spirit Airlines emailed to inform him that the flight had been canceled and he had been rebooked on a flight on Jan. 1. That meant he would be stuck in Detroit through New Year’s Eve, with no compensation or hotel accommodations.

Danny Roderique’s proposal. (Photo: Action News on 6abc/Twitter)

“[Spirit] did not offer to refund the flight, make any travel or hotel accommodations — and hung up on me when I asked to speak with a manager,” Kassoumeh told Yahoo Travel.

In order to make it home before the New Year, Sam had to make his own arrangements, booking himself on another flight, at his own cost of over $400.
"I am currently stuck in Detroit, will make it home tomorrow morning if all goes well, but have a longer less convenient six-hour flight with a connection versus my original 1.5 hour flight.”

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Roderique and Kassoumeh were among thousands of people who have found themselves stranded in airports across the U.S. in the past few days, with over 3,100 flights canceled and 9,100 delays on Monday alone. “Yesterday may have been the single worst travel day of the year,” Joe Brancatelli, founder of the business travel site JoeSentMe, tells Yahoo Travel.

To put this into context, just 200 flights were canceled across the U.S. on the same day last year.

Chicago’s Midway and O’Hare airports were the worst affected, with over 1,600 flight cancellations, as a winter storm swept across the region. Inbound flights to both airports were seeing an average delay of four hours, according to FlightAware.com.

This situation left thousands of frustrated travelers trying to get home after the holidays sleeping on cots or on the floor throughout the airport terminals. By Tuesday morning, hordes of people crowded both airports attempting to rebook flights or make their way through painfully long security lines. The wait at check-in was over two hours, with at least another hour to make it through security, according to a local NBC affiliate.

Travelers lined up at a Chicago security checkpoint area. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Concetta D’Alessio and her sister also found themselves stuck in Chicago after their 6 p.m. flight on Monday to New York was canceled just three hours before takeoff. "When I finally got in touch with a customer service representative, and I use that term loosely because they were ridiculously unhelpful, after being on hold for an hour, they told me they could fly my sister and I out on the next flight on January 1,” she told Yahoo Travel. “Four days later!”

“There was nothing else they could do,” said D’Alessio, who was with her sister and chose to rent a car and drive back to New York.

D’Alessio was one of the luckier ones: Spirit refunded her $266, though it didn’t cover the car rental, which will cost over $300. The drive will take over 12 hours.

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The impact of the delays has been widespread. Travelers have also been stranded in Detroit, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, and into Canada.

Hundreds of disgruntled travelers have taken to social media to voice their frustrations and disappointment at how airlines are handling the cancellations, with many being offered no compensation, no hotel vouchers, and no help rebooking appropriate return travel.

Some have even spent hours on the phone with airline customer service departments, only to be told there is nothing that can be done to help them.
Mark Buell and his 7-year-old were flying to Richmond from San Francisco yesterday but missed their connection in Chicago because of a weather delay.

“He sat in the line for customer service at O’Hare for five hours,” Mark’s brother Keith told Yahoo Travel. “For two to three of those five hours, he was also on hold with United customer service on the phone, but never got through.”
Keith managed to book his brother and nephew on a later flight from his computer, but that flight also got canceled, leaving them stranded in Chicago overnight.

“The weather happens and we understand that, but it was impossible to get through to anyone at United to figure out what was going on. The communication is the problem, not the delay itself,” Keith said.

So if you are stranded, what are your rights? Frighteningly, airlines have very little responsibility to help you following a flight cancellation.

"Your rights are extremely limited,” explains business travel expert Joe Brancatelli. "Airlines say they owe you nothing if your flight is delayed or cancelled when you are at your home airport or if you haven’t yet departed on your trip back home.”

According to Brancatelli, the only time the airlines take any responsibility is if you are stranded miditinerary. “In other words, you were flying from say, San Diego to Boston via Chicago,” he explains. “If they got you to Chicago and then all the Boston flights are canceled, they sort of owe you room and board. But even then they try to weasel out of it.”

There are things you can do to protect yourself from delays. (Photo: Thinkstock)

According to Brancatelli, who founded the website JoeSentMe, there are ways you can protect yourself from the hazardous and unpredictable process of traveling during the winter. Here are his tips:

Have a plan B

“When things go wrong, don’t expect airline call centers or ticket-counter agents to have the time, inclination, or resources to help you devise an alternative routing,” Brancatelli advises. Instead, develop a plan B before leaving on your trip so that you have options if the worst happens.

Budget extra time

“Assume there will be delays for anything you use on the road: flights, airport shuttles, trains, and even hotel check-ins and check-outs,” he says. “The worse the weather, the more time you should block to get from point A to point B.”

Avoid regional airlines

“Regional airlines now operate half of the nation’s commercial flights, most of them cloaked in the colors and computer codes of legacy carriers such as United, Delta, and American,” explains Brancatelli. “Unfortunately, these so-called commuter flights are notoriously unreliable, especially in winter months.”

Travel light

Stranded travelers in recent days have also been complaining about issues with their luggage. “If a flight cancels after you’ve checked your bags — a common winter occurrence — you might spend hours waiting for your luggage to be liberated,” Brancatelli says. “That could cause you to miss a backup connection or alternate flight.” He suggests only taking luggage that you can carry on the plane with you, and if you must check a bag, pack a spare set of clothes in your carry-on bag.

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