HOUSTON – Hundreds and possibly thousands of frustrated travelers want answers after they were stranded at Bush Intercontinental Airport due to heavy overnight storms.
According to Flight Aware, nearly 600 flights in an out of IAH were delayed and there were over 140 cancelations Sunday.
People in Terminal C resorted to sleeping in chairs, leaning on each other, lying on the ground, basically just trying to find a spot to spend the night while they waited for their flights.
Several flights were canceled or faced massive delays at IAH due to a late-night ground stop.
Many people were left without options and were forced to stay at the airport without transportation, a hotel or even their bags.
“When we got off the plane, we said well ‘Where do we get our bags? Where do we get a new ticket for tomorrow?’ and they (told us to) go to customer service,” said traveler Patricia Herz. “We go to customer service and the line has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people.”
Many incoming and outgoing passengers said they were stuck for hours while they waited for the storm to pass.
Debora Bonanno, who was coming from San Antonio, said her flight was supposed to leave at 9:50 p.m. but it was delayed three times before the flight was finally canceled at 1 a.m.
Bonanno said airport workers told her they couldn’t help with hotels because the delays were due to weather and the next flight out would be Monday evening.
“We don’t have our bags,” Bonanno said. “We're basically just left to fend for ourselves here in this city where we don’t, you know, know what to do. We're told it would take five hours to get to the front of the customer service line at which point they would be closed.”
According to United Airlines, bags on outbound flights are being left on planes and passengers will be able to get them when they arrive at their final destination.
It is unclear if other terminals at IAH experienced the same backup and issues.