Flypocalypse?

Early Saturday, a glitch in automation in the Washington DC area caused an “ATC Zero” in ZDC (Washington Center). Departures from all three airports: IAD, DCA and BWI were essentially in ground halt.

This has caused untold inconvenience for people, visiting the DC area and hoping to return home. FlightAware posted a MiseryMap visually showing major airports around the country, affected by this glitch. For each of the major airports, the delays by time and number of cancellations at each airport are listed.

This doesn’t even include the airport I am stuck at. So you can imagine how much more misery is being shared across the country 🙂 In fact, none of the news agencies have even started to talk about arrivals into DC area.

Since 9:00 am this morning, Southwest Airlines, canceled all flights from MCO to BWI. In fact all airlines scheduled to fly this city pair, canceled their flights.

Any hope of a Sunday return are dashed. The best option that SWA can offer me is a Tuesday morning flight. Three days in a hotel, and two days off work, all at my own expense. This doesn’t even include car rental, subsistence and other incidentals. This is one passenger we are talking about. Once we have figured out the millions of affected passengers, who’s going to pay for this?

I am glad, I am in Florida and near the beach, rather than in some stark mid western town.