Passengers and airlines face domino effect after nationwide ground stop in U.S.

Canadian airlines are adjusting their flights and trying to get back on schedule following a nationwide shutdown of air travel in the United States yesterday. Thousands of flights were cancelled or delayed after aging air traffic control systems in the U.S. were overloaded. That triggered a ground stop order by the Federal Aviation Administration, which was in effect for more than four hours. The shutdown disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers in the United States and also for thousands here in Canada whose flights would have flown through American airspace. Officials say it will take days for airlines to work through the backlog of delays. The impact of yesterday's ground stop in the U.S. also being felt here at home. Linda Ward looking into that part of the story for us this morning and also what passengers are saying because many of them wondering what happens next. Yeah, these passengers really caught in the middle of this U.S. ground stop. And what we're seeing now is the domino effect of what happens when you ground all the planes that are arriving, coming into or leaving the United States. Hundreds of flights headed to the U.S. were canceled or delayed. So were flights headed to the Caribbean, Central and South America that needed to fly through U.S. airspace. And some aircraft were diverted mid-flight to Canadian airports that were headed to the U.S. So some passengers stuck abroad, couldn't get home. Others couldn't get to their destinations. At Vancouver International Airport, 17 members of a U-15 BC lacrosse team We're traveling to a a tournament in California, but the coach had to pull the team out. A lot of months have gone into this, so it's pretty disappointing for the boys that they don't get to go. They're 15. They weren't paying attention to the intercom. They're waiting for us to tell them where to go, but when we broke it to them, they were all pretty disappointed. We've been hoping to find a different way for the last couple of hours, but it doesn't look like it's really feasible because our first game's at 8 tomorrow. And behind the scenes, things were pretty chaotic. Two passengers stuck on the tarmac, some waiting hours for their luggage. Terminals were backed up with extra aircraft. We know Toronto Pearson had to put in place a special aircraft parking plan just to handle the number of aircraft at their airport. How do they plan to keep up with this backlog? I know it's going to take days. Yeah, it is. It's going to take a long time to get everybody where they were going. First, you've got the planes that were... Diverted mid-flight to Canadian airports. Those passengers will have to get to their intended destinations. Then you've got the aircraft and the flight crews that were stuck out of position. And also you have those who were just caught in the layovers. You've got to get those people home before you even start trying to get people to their destinations that never started in the first place. The airports, all the major airlines warning this is going to likely take through the weekend to get things back to normal. Vancouver International Airport warning can Continued cancellations and delays are anticipated, particularly for flights to the continental United States and Mexico. In Montreal at Trudeau Airport, they say that operations are gradually returning to normal. Some flights will still be affected today. Calgary International Airport say there's some delays still possible across other routes. It's recommended that travellers check their flight status before they come to the airport. We heard from the spokesperson for the Greater Toronto... Toronto Airports Authority, who has asked about the plan at Toronto Pearson in the coming days. We have set up something called our Emergency Operations Centre and it really brings together key individuals to communicate with our airline partners as well as Nav Canada and address any sort of issues that arise in the moment. And then also to be able to communicate any information that we get directly to our passengers. So again, this is just one thing that we're doing here at Toronto Pearson with our EOC. We also have increased staffing as well across the airport to support passengers, but it So, yeah, a four-hour ground stop in the United States is going to take days here in Canada to remedy. All right. Thanks so much for this, Linda. You're welcome.