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When Magali Hernandez boarded a flight in Portland on Sunday, she was supposed to be soaking up the rays on a much-anticipated vacation at Disney World in sunny Orlando. Instead, Hernandez spent Christmas with her two young children and husband at an airport hotel in San Francisco without a change of clothes.
“We got to San Francisco and they told us our flight to Orlando was canceled,” she said, holding back tears.
As of Monday morning, it was still unclear if her family would be reimbursed for the multi-thousand-dollar vacation, and Hernandez was exhausted from a 12-hour layover on Alaska Airlines after multiple cancellations and delays.
“We’re locked in here,” she said.
The Hernandez family’s multi-day odyssey is part of one of the worst holiday travel seasons in recent memory. With more than 17,000 flight cancellations and tens of thousands more delayed since Wednesday, the massive winter storm that battered parts of the country over the Christmas weekend has sparked celebrations from coast to coast.
Air travel is still feeling the effects of the storm, although the bad weather has subsided. Bay Airport’s Oakland International Airport and San Jose Mineta International saw a virtual travel meltdown on Monday, with more than 65% of Southwest Airlines flights canceled and the airports turned into a blur of lines and cluttered baggage. SFO, which is not a Southwest hub, saw far fewer delays.
“With consecutive days of severe winter weather behind us on our network, the ongoing challenges are having an unacceptably significant impact on our customers and employees,” Southwest said in a statement. “And our sincere apologies for this is just the beginning.”
Total collapse of Southwest Airlines in Oakland, California. I fly a lot and have never seen anything like this. Every flight is cancelled/”delayed”. Flight to Phoenix canceled because “crew didn’t show up” pic.twitter.com/rJxbnyCf7w
– Mike Bolen | Real Estate Investor (@mikebolen) December 26, 2022
Kathleen Bangs, an air travel expert at FlightAware, said the storm’s devastating impact caught the industry off guard after a smooth Thanksgiving travel weekend.
“I don’t think anybody saw how bad it was going to be,” Bangs said.
Her advice to stranded travelers across the country: “You have to look at the country like a chessboard.
Bangs said travelers should consider flights to airports within driving distance of their destination. Or book a flight with a less risky connection — such as a stopover in Phoenix and Salt Lake City — to avoid delays, she said.
“Don’t wait for the airlines to find a solution for you, because there are another 1,000 people lined up.”
On Monday, Hernandez returned to San Francisco International Airport to pick up her family’s delayed luggage. They hope to salvage what’s left of their vacation. The family has two more nights in the Bay Area while they wait for their next flight to Orlando. On Wednesday morning, Hernandez’s husband, Eloy, will fly there with the children. Meanwhile, Hernandez is waiting for a different flight in 12 hours.
“We’re trying our best,” she said. “At least we have clothes now.”
Travelers at the San Francisco airport on Monday shared stories of holiday celebrations as an Arctic cold front plunged much of the country into sub-zero temperatures and claimed at least 50 lives across the country. As the Bay Area saw warmer temperatures over the weekend, flight delays piled up across the country, pouring in from Denver, Chicago and Seattle.
“I’m 65,” says Mark E. Sackett, founder of The Box, a San Francisco event space and antiques gallery.
Sackett, who was flying to Kansas City, arrived at SFO around 4 a.m. Friday for his flight. Nine hours later and three flight cancellations later, he left the airport.
“My mom passed away in January, so I wanted to make sure I got home,” Sackett said. “Emotionally it was very strange.”
Annette’s Georgia Bay Area vacation was also cut short by a flight cancellation. That meant the Georgia boy and girl had two less days to spend with their grandparents in Palo Alto. On Saturday night, the family hung streamers from lights in their living room in their New York home to look like a Christmas tree.
“My mother was very angry,” Georgia said.
But her youngest son, Harold, took travel disruptions in stride.
“Santa came to California,” he said.
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