Business travelers were stranded in Portland, players on a girls’ softball team wondered whether they’d make a big tournament in time, and foster kittens bound for a new home were stuck at a boarding gate with their human after a major national ground stop Friday affected nearly all flights to and from Oregon and the rest of the country.
The Federal Aviation Administration said communications problems at regional air traffic control centers were a factor in the mass flight cancellations. The so-called “groundstop” ended shortly before 6 p.m. Pacific time Friday, but federal officials warned that getting planes back in the air and ironing out backlogs would be a slow process.
That left airport staff across the country stuck with the cat-herding task of redirecting travelers facing potentially long delays.
Traveler Gwen Ma, 54, found herself stuck in San Francisco with two kittens and a deadline.
Ma, who fosters kittens in her retirement, planned to fly from San Francisco to Portland on Friday to deliver two kittens she had raised since infancy to a child’s birthday party.
“This is supposed to be a fun trip,” she said. Though she accepted she would not make it to the party on time, she was not giving up. “I will at least try to get on our flight tomorrow to take these kittens up to those kids.”
Portland resident Chris Cloney was hoping to travel in the opposite direction to visit family in San Francisco. As he was headed to the airport, a friend told him flights were being canceled nationwide, but Cloney continued en route to PDX.
“Before we got through TSA, I got the text that the flight had been canceled,” he said. He said he was optimistic that he’d be able to book a later flight and still make it on Friday.
Parents of girls trying to reach Southern California for a weekend softball tournament were less optimistic.
One of those parents, Laura Berta, said only three of the girls on her daughters’ team have made it to their destination so far, and they’ll need at least nine to compete in the weekend-long tournament.
Berta said her 14-year-old daughter, Mackenzie, seemed to be taking the travel delay in stride — at least for now.
“She’s with some of her friends, and they’re playing and hanging out in the airport,” she said. But she added, “I think if it comes down to not being able to make it down there, she’s going to be very, very upset.”
The Berta family decided to wait at PDX and appreciate the recently remodeled airport’s amenities, she said, in hopes that flights might resume in time.
Business traveler Andra Kaufman was less optimistic that flights would resume quickly.
Kaufman had already boarded her 1:15 p.m. flight and was eager to get home to Little Rock, Arkansas, after a week in hotels when the ground hold was announced.
“We were completely boarded. They had closed the doors to the plane,” she said. Flight crew members announced a slight delay — then a longer delay. As they waited, passengers started to see updates on their phones about a nationwide ground stop.
Finally, flight staff told passengers to gather their belongings and exit the plane “for comfort” as they waited for another update, Kaufman said.
Though she wants to get home to her husband, Kaufman said she was trying to look on the bright side and planned to re-book a room at the Portland hotel where she had been staying.
“I did make the joke that it is, you know, Friday the 13th,” she said.
