Select international flights cleared for takeoff amid ground stop

All right, we have team coverage for you tonight of the impact that this ground stoppage is having on travelers here in the Bay Area. KTVU's Henry Lee live at Oakland International Airport. But let's begin with KTVU's Christian Kafton at SFO, who's been talking to travelers there. And that is a very busy airport that has basically come to a stop, Christian. Yeah, absolutely. There are some limited flights that have been able to leave. We understand, again, you talked about this a moment ago, flights that are able to go east. We understand that flights are able to go toward Asia. Flights are able to go towards Hawaii. That is a relatively small number, but a critical number because what that does is it allows some of those gates to open up so that incoming flights have some place to go. Let me go ahead and show you the big board here. We've been watching this board transform. And the hours that we've been here. Now when we first got here, what we'd see is we'd see a set departure time and then we would see that time slide farther and farther back. If you're looking now, you can see we see cancel, cancel, cancel. We're seeing more of these canceled notifications popping up. We understand that we can expect to see more of them in the hours to come as this situation kind of snowballs. Remember. As we're seeing flights here, it means that those flights aren't where they're supposed to be. The planes aren't where they're supposed to be. The crews aren't where they're supposed to be. So everything is out of place. The ground stop is still in effect, and that means that we're going to start seeing more and more of these flights canceled. We talked earlier with Doug Yackel from San Francisco Airport Operations to find out what the latest information is and what's working and what's not here at SFO. I can't recall a situation of this magnitude before to take an act of this scale. It's certainly unprecedented in my recollection. So I guess the good news is we are starting to see some movement. Our focus right now is we want to ensure that we've got open gates for arriving aircraft so passengers can deplane. We've got some aircraft parking issues to think through, but the fact that we've got some aircraft departing, that's a step in the right direction. I think it's reasonable to expect that this is something probably roll over into tomorrow. We don't know how long this process is going to take so I think that at some point we may see airlines starting to cancel some flights later today if they don't think they can get them moving again. Like you say that'll put aircraft pilots and flight attendants in the wrong places and it may take until tomorrow or perhaps even Sunday. Airlines to be able to reset their schedules. So real important to keep in touch with your airline on a day like today. Sign up for those proactive flight notifications so information gets sent right to your phone. You always want to find out about a delay or a cancellation before getting to the airport. We did have a chance to talk to some people who did in fact not make it. That call before they arrived at the airport, we talked to travelers who were trying to get in to their flight. We talked with one family who was trying to get to their daughter's wedding. They say that they will likely not be able to make it up in Portland, Oregon. We talked with another family that was trying to go out east for a celebration of life for a grandmother who had passed away. So clearly these incidents is backing up and really having an impact because remember all these reasons that we travel. There are so, so many reasons to travel. We also caught up with one traveler who was on his way to Los Angeles, who briefed us on how he learned about what happened. Again, he learned at the gate when he finally got there. I kept refreshing my app and it kept saying that my flight was on time. So I don't know. And now it's like you get to the gate and they're like, yeah, by the way, everything's grounded. If you don't want to fly out or if you want to fly out tomorrow, then come and stand in line. If not, then just cancel your flight and go. I'm like, well, that's that's real options. So were you all the way through security? I was. I was at my gate and everything. And we're going to come back out to our live shot. We'll just give you a look at what the TSA check-in area looks like. Claudine, I mean, if you've flown, you know that this is unprecedented. There's always a long line here at the TSA security check. You can see, because no flight's set to go, nobody is going through security. There's no real reason to go through security, especially if your flight's not going to go and you don't know exactly what's going to happen. We do see people stacked up out here. Outside of the secure area, they're trying to figure out what the status of their flights are. They're trying to figure out if they should stay here at the airport, if they're local, if they should go home, if they're travelers, if they should try to find lodging for the night. So many questions, so many options. People are trying to figure out exactly how they're going to navigate this situation, which at this point, we still don't know when exactly this is going to end. And this, uh, this, uh, uh... We've heard this delay could last through 8 p.m. But who knows? So there are so many questions at this point. It's hard for people to plan and try to figure out how they can accommodate this situation. Yeah. Christian, I've been watching you talk to folks all afternoon, and it seems to me they started out with some hope, which is why they came. They're like, OK, maybe it's a delay. And then certainly as the hours have progressed, the chances that they might make it out of there get smaller. You know, I'm looking at FlightAware that has total delays. In or out of the United States at 9,535, cancellations at 5,313. What's deceiving about that is if it still says delay on that screen, you think there's still hope, but the numbers are just shifting. There'll be fewer delays and more cancellations because when we're talking about the number of flights, maybe a couple are getting out, but that doesn't account for so many people who are just sitting there. Exactly right, Claudia. That's why I wanted to show you the big board right away to show you that those cancellations are now starting to pile up. But people are holding out hope that they can kind of navigate a way through. We talked with one gentleman who was trying to get to Singapore. His flight on Air Canada was delayed at first. He was here at the airport at 9 o'clock this morning. It was delayed, delayed, delayed throughout the day. Finally cancelled. He was booked on a United flight tomorrow morning. And while he was talking with the gate agent there, All of a sudden, another flight to Singapore that was scheduled to fly tonight at 10 o'clock. All of a sudden, a whole block of seats started opening up, right, because there are passengers who are expected to make their way onto that flight who aren't here. So now, all of a sudden, a previously booked flight had availability. He tried to book one of those seats right there, and he is hoping that he'll be able to get on that flight tonight instead of having to come tomorrow morning. Folks hoping for little lucky coincidences like that where maybe they can eke a way out to get to where they need to go. But Claudine, you can just imagine the challenge that this is going to pose going forward, right? It's not just that the flights are being canceled. If there's a flight canceled in Denver, it means that the plane from Denver that's supposed to be here in San Francisco isn't in place. It means that the crew from Seattle that's supposed to be here isn't in place. It's so on demand and it's so exactly everything is is is is planned out to a T. And as soon as it starts to collapse, the whole thing collapses. And it's challenging to get crews where they need to get. Equipment where it needs to get it just becomes incredibly exponentially more challenging as it progresses and the unknown as you've been talking about makes it even harder and certainly people hold on to maybe eight o'clock, but if it's not eight o'clock and then the game plan changes once again. All right, Christian, I appreciate all your reporting out there as we've watched the situation change and really we're kind of stuck in the passenger seat waiting to hear more. And again, we are waiting for that press conference from the White House, hoping that might shed some more light on where things stand as far as getting this resolved. All right. Thank you, Christian.