ST. LOUIS – The beginning of the summer travel season is off to a rocky start. Widespread delays and flight cancelations have stranded thousands, as airlines brace for a busy Fourth of July weekend. For travelers at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, Wednesday was a mixed bag, with various problems rating from the benign to the frustrating.
“Our travel was really easy,” Ryan Olson, who was flying back to Seattle. “Only travel delay was they did lose our luggage on our way out here. So, they were a couple of days delayed to us, but otherwise just fine.”
One woman accused her airline of trying to shake her down for more money.
“I went back in to put my TSA number and I put my full name in, not realizing I didn’t do that when I booked the ticket,” she said. “Now, they want to charge me $85 because they say I changed my name. I spent an hour trying to speak to someone, tried to do the chat thing, and I’ve been here over two hours trying to get this cleared up.”
Several airlines have faced myriad cancelations and delays, like United, Frontier, and Air Canada. Not to mention the airlines facing excessive heat across the country, and storms expected on the East Coast to start the Fourth of July weekend.
“We’re trying to get out of St. Louis to the Azores, and we’ve been delayed since Monday, and now it’s Wednesday. But we were lucky because we were in our own home,” said Kelly Keitzer. “But we got here and our plane came from Canada, but then they canceled it. So, we’re going back home to Iowa. Today, they must have had trouble with math, because they left Canada and got here knowing they’d have to return, and they were out of flight hours for their crew. So, maybe the math could be stepped up a little bit.”
Meanwhile, the expanded rollout of the 5G network, planned for July 1, may yet prove problematic. Planes that haven’t upgraded their equipment won’t be allowed to land in bad weather conditions.