FAA orders ground stop at Logan Airport, forcing delays and cancellations
BOSTON – There have been a large number of cancellations and delays at Logan Airport because of stormy weather along the East Coast. The FAA ordered a ground stop at the airport Thursday evening.
The tarmac looked like the Southeast Expressway during rush hour. Bill Beard was on one of those planes. He had flown in from Savannah with tickets to Thursday night's Celtics NBA Finals game, and the clock was ticking as he waited.
"The tickets for Game 6 were very expensive, we ultimately found a couple that were relatively affordable… we pulled the trigger on that a couple of nights ago and that's looking like a bad management decision at this point," Beard told WBZ while he was waiting to get off the plane. "There's nothing we can do about it obviously so you just have to have good spirits about it."
Beard was able to get to the TD Garden for the second quarter of the game.
Inside the terminals, frustration was spilling over. The FAA had called a ground stop for more than an hour after severe weather struck airports on the East Coast.
"I sat for four hours on the runway here," one passenger said.
"Then it would be an hour, then it was two hours then, it was three hours," another passenger said. "We have been at various airports today for more than 12 hours. We are going on 14 hours now."
Nationwide, more than 18,000 flights were delayed and 3,500 flights were cancelled.
In a statement, Delta said, "Weather challenges at airports across the northeast today have caused congestion for both arrivals and departures at Boston Logan International Airport. We apologize to customers for any inconvenience as Delta teams work with ATC to get customers on their way as quickly and safely as possible."
FlightAware says about 10% of the flights out of Logan were cancelled, but a whopping 34% experienced delays.
The travel trouble comes as airline executives meet with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to talk about how airlines will handle a busy summer season.
