Thousands of flights canceled after nationwide ground stop

In a special Fox 11 news here at 630 that you can watch on Fox Local. I'm Glenn Walker along with Christine Devine. A crazy day. U.S. nationwide ground stop. It's now been lifted. But what a day here in the United States as every airport and every flight was shut down. We had the good news coming in at our 5 o'clock hour that the flight stoppage is over. It has been lifted. Flights are resuming. How soon and how quickly all those flights around the nation can get up and running, that is another story, Glenn, at 6.30 here at night on a Friday. Yeah, a lot of folks at all of our local airports, their commercial flights were canceled. This is a live look at LAX, where, by the way, it's raining tonight. That probably would have been a big story if not for the shutdown across the country. And we have reporters standing by at pretty much every airport here in our area. We do. And reminded that this is locally at LAX, the Long Beach Airport, the Orange County Airport, Burbank. And just look at the nation right now. This is the flight. Is this right happening? Is this live? I would assume this is what it looks like presently. As you can see, air traffic, it had thinned out a little bit. Now it's starting to pick up again. You see some international flights that are leaving on the East Coast. A few here on the West Coast and also some flights coming in. Right. You can imagine this is a much busier look at the flight patterns and flights happening live on a normal day. So the fact that we're seeing anything here is really a welcome sight. I'm looking there at all of the flights coming into LAX tonight on this Friday night. And as you mentioned, all the flights leaving, say, the New York area. What I don't see right now, Glenn, as we look at this, are flights leaving LAX. It doesn't look like it, Okay, but look at those planes stacked up coming in from the... Over the Pacific Ocean right there. It just thinned out just a little bit, so maybe a couple of those have landed. Speaking of LAX, we do have a reporter standing by there. That would be our Ed Laskos. Ed, what do you have for us? Hi, Glenn. Yeah, well, you know, the ground stopped, certainly. Okay, now we're ready. The ground stop has ended, but you know, a lot of folks we've been talking to are realizing, sadly, they may still be going nowhere fast. Let's get into the story, Mikey, outside Terminal 7. Look it. Earlier, this was jammed with folks who were stuck on their planes for a couple of hours. They finally were able to get shuttle buses, shuttles, and off to the hotel. So that's a good part of the story. Nobody here, but Mikey, let's go inside and look at this. This is a line, a huge line here outside the terminal counter. These are folks who are trying to rebook. who got stuck. I want to introduce you, bring you over here, if I could talk to Paul. Hey, Paul. Paul, we're live, actually, now. Can we talk to you real quick? Sure, sure, sure. On Fox 11. So, Paul, you had a trip, and you were hoping to go back to New York and visit your folks. But tell us, you got stuck in this quagmire, huh? We got stuck in this quagmire, and... You know, we had no idea. All of a sudden we were set to get on the flight and it was cancelled. You know, we're really disappointed because we have these tickets to that great play, Other Desert Cities. You get those tickets, right, on Broadway. Yeah, well, we're very lucky. It's a hard ticket to get, but we got it, yeah. And it's the Sunday matinee that we're going to, you know, attend, and hopefully we're going to get a flight out tonight. We're looking for a red-eye. Well, you know, the one fellow we were talking to said he rebooked, but he said the best he could do was Sunday morning. So you're still hopeful, huh? We're still hopeful. We're still hopeful. That's what I'm looking for. We'll see what happens. We're going to give it one last try, and otherwise we'll maybe come back. We'll be right back. Go in December, whatever, but it really upended our plans. Thank you very much. Frustrating day. Very frustrating day. We've been planning on it for a long time, and we wanted to see our daughter, and she was all excited about it and ready for us to come. And we had our. My wife had already checked into the hotel online. Wow, wow, wow. So we're working with the hotel because we paid it ahead of time. We didn't go for the... cancellation policy, because we figured we're going to make it, right? Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, anyhow, hope everybody else, you know, hope everybody gets to where they need to go. And, you know, best of luck. Perfect, Paul. Thank you. Best of luck to you, too, and your family. I hope you can see that. Enjoy that show. You're going to get it. Good for you. And, you know, Paul makes a very good point. It's a domino effect, because a lot of folks, you know, they get their car rentals. They also get the hotels. He's telling everybody if you're rebooking to come over here. Oh, you're still there? Yeah. Glenn, are you there? Yeah. We're here. Glenn? Yeah, okay. I was going to say, that lady was telling, the clerk was telling the folks, if you're here only to rebook, if you're trying to get luggage, there's no luggage here. You can't reclaim any of your luggage here. And right over here, where this line is bad, Mikey, if we swing over here, this is also interesting. The kiosk area, when we had the ground stop, this was empty. There wasn't a soul here standing. All of a sudden, they got the announcement. Actually, it wasn't an announcement. Their phones dinged. Everybody was on their cell phones, indicating the ground stop had been lifted. And all of a sudden, everybody rushed over here, using the kiosks, trying to rebook. Thinking it might be faster. Others trying to rebook through their app on their phone, through the airline. That was a bit frustrating for a lot of folks. So it's really a question at this hour now, rebooking. And the folks we've been talking to, the one fella said Sunday, you heard Paul hoping maybe a red eye tonight. But I got to tell you, for a lot of folks we've been talking to, all bets are off. They want to get out. But that backup has just been so severe. Mikey, as you can see, what are you pointing to, Mikey? I'm looking forward to it. Oh, yeah. I think. Christine, Glenn, we have a second? Let's walk over with us if you have a second here. I'll just show you the board, and we'll look at the earlier. Everything it said, delayed, delayed, canceled, canceled. Of course, that was when the ground stop was happening. And, of course, this is Terminal 7, which is United. Here's the board over here as we navigate all of these nice folks here because everybody's been standing, and some of them, I'll be honest with you, were cussing at the board earlier when they were looking at this. And maybe here's the reason why. Look at that, all the reds, canceled, canceled, canceled, San Francisco, Vegas, everything canceled. And then the other one, if it's not canceled, Thank you very much. Through here, let's do one more look down this way. This was jammed earlier, too. All the way down as you look through the terminal, looking down as we're looking around the horseshoe over down to Terminal 6 itself. And it's just been one crowd and the folks still. As they're trying to rebook, which is interesting. Think about this time on a busy Friday night over here to the left, Mikey. This line would be very, very busy with the TSA. As long as it's clean, we're live on TV. Oh, yeah, it's clean? Yeah, yeah, clean. All right. Denise Julia is the best part of the interview. All right, Jason. Look at everybody's a wise guy here at LAX. But you know what? Maybe you can't blame them. They had a heck of a day. I'll leave you with one last thought. The one fella talked to, he was upset, and he said, that's what I get for booking my flight on a Friday the 13th. So those are kind of the emotions we're dealing with here at LAX tonight. People have been there for a long time. I can understand the stress there, but we do appreciate hearing from people's different stories and hearing about what they're trying to do about getting a flight out or getting a hotel room or getting their luggage. So anybody willing to talk to you and give you their actual story about the day and this flight stoppage, we do appreciate it. And you were talking, I believe it was you, with a passenger who didn't speak English. Was that your report? Uh, no, I don't think so. We've talked to so many, but everybody we had, uh, speaking English enough, you know, or, and there was one lady we spoke to, she was broken English, but she was making the point saying, well, you know, uh, I don't know what the heck that noise is behind me. Something's buzzing. Oh, actually, it's right behind me. They're going through the screening here. Look at it. I'm thinking about that because nobody's been going through here tonight. The one lady, though, you know, was kind of broken English, but her point was she was saying emotions or frustration are the same in any language when you deal with what's been going on. And, you know, I've got to tell you, guys, one thing. That last fellow we talked to was making some plug for somebody. Everybody, believe it or not, as frustrated as they are, everybody's been very nice. Very understanding, which really surprised the heck out of me. I was really surprised by that. And that was the last fellow, or the only fellow we've been talking to over the last several hours, who was trying to get a plug-in for whatever the heck he was trying to do. But everybody else couldn't be more kind, more understanding, more patient, really, which is really amazing when you consider the delays and what a lot of these folks have been through the last several hours. Yeah, the woman yet you're referring to, that's who I was thinking of. I'm thinking of all the international travelers who maybe don't speak. The English language with the Tom Bradley Airport International Terminal that are trying to navigate this change or delay in flight and trying to get hotels and vehicles because we think of all the flights that go to many, many foreign countries with people who are visiting or stopping by or have a layover. Yeah, well, any flights that was leaving or going somewhere else from LAX, foreign flights, they were able to leave. All the, you know, earlier today, all the flights from Europe completely shut down. They weren't allowed to come in. So hopefully that's all rectified now. And we did see that, I think it was Gina actually was talking to a couple earlier, Gina Silva, that they were going on their honeymoon, but they got their luggage back. Is that you, Gina? I can't remember. You were Christina in Burbank. No, I don't think that was me, but I was, Christina was in Burbank. I was at LAX. I did speak with a couple who was supposed to go to Paris, so a romantic getaway, and they're stuck at LAX. Right now, I'm in Orange County, John Wayne Airport, and I want you to meet Anna. She is from Brazil, and she goes to school here, but she was headed to Boston, and so kind of take it from there. What happened? Yes, we had a flight scheduled for today at 6 p.m. and then we just saw the news and we just came here now to figure out what was happening, if we have a flight again and they told us unfortunately all the flights right now, they're all full and now they put me on flight back to Boston Monday, 10 a.m. So I will have to stay here till today, until Monday. They say they are going to put me on standby. And, like, no even help with the hotel or anything like that. Oh my goodness, so you have to find a place to live until Monday. Until Monday. And you haven't checked with hotels or rental cars or anything like that to find out how busy they are? No, I did not. I'm probably going to take a look right now and see if I can find something around, but I didn't yet. And are they offering any help? Who's footing the bill for all this? Nothing. I asked them if they could offer like a hotel or at least like some voucher from you or something. They said, unfortunately, no, because that's something with the government, not with the airplane. So, unfortunately, I will have to figure it out by myself what to do. Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry. And you are here with a group of people, right? Yes. At the very least, that's helpful. At least I'm not alone, yes. So, what do you think about what happened? Well, I don't know. I heard something, but I'm not sure about what really happened. But, you know, I'm just hoping everyone is safe and not bad happen. So, yeah. You're not concerned about getting on a plane? I'm a little worried, for sure. But I believe if they are letting people go on their plane right now, I think everything is like, you know. Going well. I hope so. I'm crossing my fingers. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us and good luck to you. I mean, hopefully, so you are booked for Monday, right? I'm booking for Monday right now and I will stay in standby in case they can find me a new flight as soon as possible. I hope so. Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed for you. I am. All right, Anna. Thank you. Thank you. And, Justin, if you take a look, there is a small line here, and these are the folks who are rebooking for, you know, hopefully getting back on to their destinations. And it's been, obviously, an incredibly difficult day. We heard in that news conference that it was... We have an old system, and the new system that they were trying to install was not compatible with the older equipment, and that caused an error with data, and so that's been part of the problem. Hi there. Where are you trying to get to? Richmond. Richmond. How long have you been out here? About two hours. And were you ever on a plane already taking off? Because there were some folks who were stuck on the plane. No, ma'am. I only made it to right here, and then they turned me around, and now I'm back in line because they lifted the ban. And what are your thoughts about everything that's happened? It's definitely crazy. It's unexpected. I expect it. It's unprecedented. It's only happened, I think, in our lifetime three times. And so this is just not supposed to happen. And how are you holding up? I know it's frustrating. I mean, it's frustrating, but there's not really much you can do. So you've just got to smile and hope for the best. And have they given you, you haven't spoken with anybody yet, right? This is your first time. Okay, well, we certainly wish you the best. All right, thank you so much. I know he looks a little sad, and I get it. I get it. I get it. Yeah, he wants to be home. I would be too. But it is, you know... There aren't a lot of folks here. If you kind of pan over, there's a little group over there. And I think folks just gave up earlier when, you know, nothing was happening because this broke earlier in the day and there was no sign that it was going to get fixed or anything like that. So many folks just decided, you know what, we're just going to go to a hotel, go have dinner, and then we'll try to figure it out later. And now that it's been lifted, some of the folks are coming back. But it's still, you know, small groups that are here. And that's what we're seeing here at John Wayne. Hello. Where are you going home? Where's home? Dallas, Texas. Yes. All right. So how long have you guys been out here? Not much. About two hours. They just canceled our flight, yes. And so are you able to get on another flight? Are you going to make it happen? Are you going to make it happen? . She's gonna try though. She's gonna try. That's all you can ask, right? Alright, so you guys are in good spirits. I mean, when this happened, it's a shock, right? What was your reaction? Who wants to talk about that? What are your thoughts on that? God's in control of everything. We believe that He's in control, wherever is going to happen, we're in a good place. So you guys are from Dallas? Yes. And what were you doing out here? We came for a conference, for a theology conference. Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I wish you guys a safe trip. Hopefully you'll get on. So you don't know when, right? She's trying to accommodate us for tomorrow. We are planning her, like, let us try today, but she doesn't think it's going to happen today. Maybe Starbucks might help? Anybody want to bring her some coffee? A lot. Oh, yeah. We really need a coffee, for sure. All right. Good luck to you guys. All right, so Dallas, they want to go to Dallas, and they're talking, I don't want to interrupt, but yeah, you know, it's going to be, I think it's going to be difficult, Christine Glenn, to get all of the flights up and running. I mean, we're talking about 44,000 flights daily, and all of them are grounded. Hi there, you have a beautiful smile. So, good spirit, right? Come on over. Where are you headed to? Thank you. Thank you. What? Thank you. Tell me. All right, so where do you want to go? Thank you. We're going to Dallas. Dallas as well. So this whole group is from the same school? Yes, the same school, Living Water. Okay. Yeah. And your thoughts on everything that's happened today? We didn't know what's happening, but I prefer don't talk exactly about it. But we have a lot of ideas about the situation, but I prefer put our lives in God's hands because I think He can control everything. And you guys, you're Brazilian, right? We are Brazilian. Yeah. All right. Well, welcome to Forge County. Thank you so much. And hopefully you'll get on that flight. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Have a great night. Bye. All right. I'm going to send it back to you guys in the studio. So everyone here seems to be really happy despite, you know, the inconvenience of it all. Oh, I love seeing my fellow Brazilians. Yeah, there you go. Buonanotte to my fellow Brasileiras. Yeah. All right. From John Wayne Airport. Yeah. Let's go to Hollywood Burbank Airport. The brand new. Airport. That's right. Ross Palumbo there in Burbank. Hey, Christine and Glenn. I was just talking to Southwest here. They're about 70% of the flights that come out of this airport. We're talking about 40 to 60 flights a day. And they say at this moment, they are just now starting to board passengers. It's been about an hour since flights could resume, but not a single flight has gotten. Out of Hollywood Burbank, at least not yet. People are starting to stream back in here to the ticket counter and try to get rebooked and try to get their luggage back on the plane. This woman right here is trying to get to San Jose. How are you doing, ma'am? Hi. How are you? I'm better than you. What's it been like today? Just completely unexpected challenges, but glad now the shutdown has been lifted, so that's a positive update. Yeah, you think you're going to make it to San Jose tonight? Fingers crossed, yeah. It looks like you've been lugging this huge bag. Yeah, we didn't expect this to happen. It's just a simple, yeah. It's a little bit of a glitch. Did you actually check this at one point and have to go back and retrieve it? No, they did not. At 1.30 this afternoon, everything had stopped, so. We were all stuck here. So how were you feeling about, you know, the whole safety situation? They say this was just a computer glitch. There was nothing more to it. Do you feel confident flying now? I do believe in the expertise of the pilots and the systems behind it. So I believe their expertise and training will go in play. Yes, you know, glitches do happen, and you have these systems, computers, and whatnot. But hoping for the best. All right. We are very positive. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you. Have a great evening. So you too. So listen, it has been a long day for many people like this woman out here. But you can see this has really been the attitude, the prevailing attitude that we've seen out here at the airport all day long. People have actually been pretty positive in a situation that could have been utterly chaotic and disastrous. People that we've talked to all day long have been taking it in stride. You know, this area is empty right now, but for most of the day, people have been I've been packed around. These boards, especially departures right here, trying to figure out exactly whether they would be delayed or whether their flight was canceled. This, unfortunately, hasn't been too reliable throughout the day yet, but right now it looks like some of these flights are beginning to be on time. One of the biggest indicators that we're seeing that things are beginning to get back to normal is the TSA area. Now, look, it still doesn't look crazy busy, but you see there are one or two people starting to move through here. And that is a very good sign. In fact, if we come just a little bit farther down here, Joe, I think we can get a slightly better view. When we came live to you about an hour ago, if we peer back down there at some of the gates, it's kind of hard to see. But you can see there are more people milling about. You know, earlier when the news first broke, literally seconds after we learned that the flights could resume. we broke the news to two women traveling to denver listen to what they had to say then it was lifted it was just lifted now you guys were just about to leave yeah right so what do you think of the news is that fake news no this is real news yeah this is real okay so maybe you should go back in and try to figure it out what do you think serious i'm 100 serious we're live on the air right now All right. Okay. Good news. You're going to go back inside? We're going to go back inside. Okay. You're the first two to know at the entire airport. Where'd you, where'd you... Where's your news from? We're Fox News. We're Fox News. All right, you guys. We'll catch up with you on the inside, okay? Go back at her, love. I can tell you we did catch up with those two women. And they, like this woman you see going through security right now, we follow them as they went through the security. They're actually at their gate right now. And they are about to board, so good news from them. We will hear from them before they take off the tarmac, Christine and Glenn, just to make absolute certain that they're going to get out. We think, in fact, they may be one of the first flights to take off. Earlier, I told you that there was a flight that was scheduled moments after my launch. I have to go to Hawaii, unfortunately. That flight did not get off the ground. They're still waiting as well. So it's moving. More people are moving here through security. It's looking better and better. We have, what, 15,000 people a day that travel through this airport. That stoppage happened at Roughly what 1254 today. So most of them have already traveled but still several thousand they're going to have to book new flights first get back to the airport you know how this works so many people left they're coming back to the airport booking new flights checking their luggage and getting through this so it's going to be a slow recovery here but things are moving Moving along, that's where we're latest live from. Hollywood Burbank Airport, back to you. That is a welcome sight, people, going through that TSA checkpoint. Also, I noticed, Ross, on the board, there was one flight that said boarding. I'm wondering if you can maybe make your way back there whenever you have a moment to check out which flight that might be. And I'm guessing people are getting, oh, there's somebody on the run. Nice, nice, nice. Look, Christine, that's a great sign, right? I mean, instead of just thinking, oh, what's going on? When you see people running to the gates, you know things are starting to kick back into gear. And you know, after seeing this over the years, when something happens in the airport and there's any sort of delay, not a stoppage, but any delay, it takes hours. Wait a minute. The departures, that one said Austin, but you see it says boarding and then it said delay. Now the Phoenix, Arizona says boarding, but I have to tell you, this is a very unusual situation. Usually these boards are very accurate, but we've noticed throughout the day, because of the technical problems they've been having. This board hasn't been right for anyone. Most people are usually gathered around here. Virtually no one is here now because people are going to the ticket counter because they know that the information just hasn't been updated as accurately as it needs to be. How you doing, sir? We're live on the air right now. I want to ask you, it looks like you're back in run. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. We'll walk with you. I don't want you to be late. I don't want to be late either. Where are you flying to? San Francisco. All right. So how long have you been delayed? For six hours. Six hours. Yeah. And this was supposed to be like a turnaround trip. I flew in from San Francisco, got here this morning, was supposed to go back like around one and then all this happened. I'm sorry. Did you actually check your bags and have to get them again? I did. I went to go to a hotel because I got the message that, you know, that had lifted. So I came back and they're putting me on the flight. What time is your flight leaving now? This is wrong. So, but I think it's going to be at 10. So that says 10.50. 10.50. Well, listen, good luck to you, sir. Thank you so much. Safe travels. Appreciate it. Thank you. Of course. All right, you guys, we're going to keep watching as people get on these flights, and we will let you know as soon as the first one gets off the ground. Hopefully, it's imminent. Hopefully, it'll be that flight to San Francisco or those two women heading to Denver. We'll let you know. All right. Nice to see. Absolutely. Apparently they're getting the information because he came from the ticket counter. Yeah. They're getting the information. Head to your gate. Yeah. Good to see smiles on people's faces. A little bit of relief for them. Yeah. And I'd like to know when you talk to more people, Ross, are they getting a text from their airline? Are they just there they get the info? I mean, how are people now supposed to know to go gather at the airport and which flight? But we'll check back with you in a bit.