Dozens of travelers stranded by a string of disastrous delays and cancellations at LaGuardia Airport waited in hourslong lines Friday in hopes they could finally rebook their flights.
“It’s horrible. They text you all the updates as far as the delays, but when the actual cancellation [comes], no word from anybody,” John Rodriguez, who missed a wedding in the Florida Keys after his flight to Florida was canceled Thursday morning, told The Post.
“We had a wedding to be at today at 2 o’clock. As you can see, we are not there.”
On Thursday, more than a third of all flights at the Queens hub were canceled in one of the worst travel days yet this summer — and the chaos spilled over into Friday, which saw 19% of flights axed and another 24% with delays by late afternoon.
And though the cancelation turmoil largely cleared up by Friday afternoon, at LGA’s Terminal C, around 100 travelers still stranded lined up in front of a Delta help desk and waited to be rebooked.
“They don’t want to give any hotel vouchers and they only put me on a flight two days later and they gave me food for only one meal for all of us,” said Mark Men, 33, who just wrapped a week-long vacation to the big city with his wife and two kids and is trying to get back to Tennessee.
“They also said that if I wanted more meals that I should be entitled to, I will have to call them, and if they say yes on the phone, I will have to come back to the airport, get the vouchers, and the vouchers are only good for in the airport,” said Men, whose kids are ages 3 and 5.
“I don’t know [what to do]. I’m trying to book a hotel. We had a budget for our vacation, and now we’re going to have to blow through some savings.“
Rodriguez, who is luckily a local, went home at 10 p.m. last night after his flight was delayed for nearly 12 hours and then canceled. He’s holding out hope he can get a flight “anywhere near” the Florida Keys so he can at least salvage a hotel booking he made in Islamorada.
“We had reservations at Islamorada in the Keys, starting tomorrow. They don’t want to refund anything. That’s like $2,000 down the drain. We’re trying to see if we could get something,” said Rodriguez.
“So far, nothing.”
The pair waited two hours on Thursday to see an agent and when they finally spoke to her, they were told there was nothing she could do.
“I was pretty upset. Then we had to wait in another hour and a half line to get our bags back,” Rodriguez said.
“[Today] my wife got on the phone. She got somebody now, she is trying to help us. She got through after almost three hours on hold.”
Amaury Severino is also trying to get to Florida for a vacation with 12 family members, including his young children, but gave up on flying by mid-afternoon and was in the processing of booking a big van that he could drive to Orlando.
“We booked this flight maybe a few months ago. We were very prepared for it. I took a week off of work. This happened out of nowhere. They canceled it on us. We went on the line already and they told us they have Sunday available for us, but we need to get there today,” said Severino, 26, who lives in Queens with his three kids, ages 3, 4 and 10 months.
“We already forgetting about flying, we’re just gonna start driving… it’s going to be tougher with the kids. We’re just hoping that they will sleep more than cry.”
