LAX, other airports full of passengers stranded on domestic layover: ‘I could spend the rest of my life here’

A four-hour ground stop on all U.S. flights on Friday caused chaos for thousands of travelers at California airports.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the shutdown around 1 p.m. and lifted it around 5:15 p.m. It was the second full ground shutdown in the United States since September 11, and U.S. transportation officials said it stemmed from a telecommunications glitch and old air traffic control technology.

Although U.S. flights have resumed, it will likely take several days to restore normal operations due to delayed flights.

Around 5:30 p.m., Chicago resident Raven Redmond, 32, told the Times she just wanted to go home to be with her 9-year-old son, who has autism.

Redmond, who was sitting on a window sill in Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport, was trying to think of different ways to get home.

The professional hip-hop dancer’s flight back to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport was booked for Sunday, but she had hoped to standby for a Friday flight because her weekend concert had fallen through and hotel prices in Los Angeles were high.

She tried to book an Amtrak ticket, but the customer service line kept going down. She briefly considered embarking on a cross-country bus trip, but she couldn’t arrive until Monday.

“I’m so worried about how long I’ll have to stay in Los Angeles because of this,” she said. “It causes so much emotional turmoil.”

Zack Richeimer, 29, found himself stuck at LAX Terminal 6 on Friday, “running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” hoping to find a way to get to San Francisco.

When he arrived at the airport, his flight to San Francisco International Airport was officially delayed and the terminal screens showed no cancellations, so he figured he would just have to wait. Then his phone lit up, and several friends told him, “You’re stuck. »

An Alaska Airlines agent helped him rebook for Saturday, but Richeimer wanted to maintain his plans in the Bay Area and scrambled to find a way to make it happen.

The other travelers around him seemed to be either working frantically on their phones or standing in disbelief. “It’s a little overwhelming,” he said.

His flight back to New York on Sunday will depart from SFO, so he tried rental car companies — hoping to drive instead — but no one answered the phone.

“I’m also part of a mass exodus from this airport right now,” Richeimer said. “I arrived in Los Angeles not knowing that I could spend the rest of my life there.”

His plan was to show up at a rental car agency near LAX and hope for the best. The backup plan: his friends’ couch.

Dylan Schroeder, 37, had already boarded a plane in Charlotte, North Carolina, around 3:45 p.m. Eastern Time, bound for Orlando, Florida, when the pilot made an unusual announcement.

“Once everyone was on board,” he said, “the pilot came in saying air traffic control was having system problems.”

The pilot said he would stay on the plane for an update and after a little over an hour announced that the passengers would be disembarking.

Schroeder, a resident of Baton Rouge, La., said the general mood aboard the plane was OK “given the circumstances.” Several passengers who appeared to be heading to Disney World seemed disappointed.

At 4:15 p.m., Marcelo Guevara, 30, returning from a 16-day vacation in Japan, stood in front of the Delta Airlines check-in kiosks at Terminal 3 at LAX. His scheduled connecting flight appeared to be missing from the Delta departures board and he was waiting for help from an agent.

“Right now I’m trying not to think about it too much, just not to stress,” Guevara said.

But the logistics analyst said he was worried about being able to return to his hometown of Lima, Peru, by Monday because he had to work that day. His return trip requires several stops and lasts about 23 hours, he said. If he couldn’t return home by then, it would be a “big problem,” he said.

A queue of about 40 people had formed for Delta customer service.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the shutdown was due to a telecommunications outage and did not pose a threat to national security.