“This is awful,” Becky Davis said as she waited at the American Airlines ticket counter at DFW Airport.
Davis chose to leave the secured area of the airport to try and book a new flight in person after her original plans were disrupted.
“We were delayed by three hours in Savannah, and now we’ve missed our flight to Idaho Falls. The customer service wait is three hours long, and the phone wait is eight hours, so I decided to come to the ticket counter to try and bypass this delay,” she explained with a smile.
While American and Southwest Airlines, operating out of Dallas Love Field, reported normal operations by mid-morning, many travelers continued to face disruptions throughout the day due to a major Microsoft outage linked to cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Davis’s decision to seek help in person paid off; she managed to book a later flight for tonight.
“Better late than never,” she said as she prepared to go through security again.
According to FlightAware’s ‘Misery Map,’ the worst delays were reported in Atlanta, Houston, New York, and Washington D.C.
Trenice Byers, who is heading to a friend’s wedding in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, remained calm despite the outage’s impact on some of her family members in Louisiana.
“There’s nothing you can do about it, so you have to approach it with grace, just as God gives us grace. You have to stay calm and be present—that’s what I’m doing,” she said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation advises affected passengers to visit flightrights.gov for information on which airlines cover meals, hotel stays, and offer free rebooking.
