Charlotte Douglas sees hundreds of delays, cancellations for second consecutive weekend

CHARLOTTE — There were nearly 600 delays at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Saturday, marking the highest number of delays in the country, according to the website Flight Aware. On Sunday, over 400 flights were delayed.

It’s the second weekend that the airport has seen more than 500 delays. There were also 50 cancellations into and out of the airport on Saturday and 46 cancellations on Sunday.

The majority of the delays and cancellations came from American Airlines and its subsidiaries.

Channel 9′s Glenn Counts was at the airport, where he met a group of surgeons out of Tampa that got caught in the travel nightmare on Sunday. The group flew to Durham for a conference at Duke University, but they said they don’t know when they’ll make it back to Tampa.

“So we had to get an Uber from Durham to Charlotte --which was not cheap, and a couple of hours in the car-- just so we could make our connecting flight to go back home and make it in time for work, and as we were pulling up to the airport here, we get an alert from American that our flight would be delayed,” said surgeon Kristina Gemayel.

Bill Scllars is a consultant who travels constantly for work, and for the past month has been going back and forth to Baltimore.

“There is a better than 50% odds that there is some kind of delay that’s going to affect me almost on a weekly basis,” Scllars said.

Last week, American Airlines told Channel 9 that the delays were weather-related and a domino effect ensued, causing staffing displacements.

A spokesperson for American Airlines echoed their statement on Sunday, saying in part, “Recovery from yesterday’s weather in Charlotte and thunderstorms in other parts of the country this weekend are the main drivers.”

The pilots’ union is pushing back on the narrative that the delays are weather-related. In data presented to Channel 9 last week, the American Pilots Association data show 47% of the flights canceled nationwide are due to pilots not being assigned to a plane, which has impacted around 30,000 customers.

Flights being delayed or canceled have been an ongoing issue this summer at Charlotte Douglas.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Charlotte Douglas was part of the top five airports for worst delays this summer, with almost 30% of flights delayed and more than 3% canceled.

(WATCH BELOW: Stranded’: Family put on no-go list during layover at Charlotte Douglas airport)

Stranded’: Family put on no-go list during layover at Charlotte Douglas airport

©2022 Cox Media Group