After an outage caused a nationwide groundstop of American Airlines flights Tuesday morning, 5 out of the 6 flights scheduled for the day at the Columbia Regional Airport were delayed, all due to weather conditions across the country.
Tamara Bentler, whose flight to from COU to Mississippi was delayed by more than 4 hours, said the airline did not provide a specific reason at first for the delay.
“I have the app, but I feel like I could be notified, because I signed up for texting,” Bentler said. “But I feel like I wasn’t really notified by text.”
The issue of untimely notifications was also mentioned by other passengers.
“[The airline should] definitely get communication out quicker,” said Trent Nichols, who flew from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to Columbia. “Because I was getting updates from my family, like ‘hey your flight got delayed’, and then was receiving the notification [from American Airlines] 15 or 20 minutes later.”
Regarding the impact on travel plans, Nichols said, “I know plenty of others did have their plans affected at the airport. People were thinking about getting hotels or should I go back home and wait. Thankfully, not a whole lot going on, at least during the day, for me.”
Dornubari Ajinwo’s first flight, from Miami to Chicago, was delayed by an hour and a half.
“I was scared because it’s Christmas Eve, and I didn’t want to spend Christmas stuck on the road,” Ajinwo said. “I just want to be home with my kids.”
Ajinwo was able to catch her connecting flight to Columbia thanks to the long layover she had planned.
According to COU customer service representative Christina Robinson, the customer service team assists passengers by rebooking, rerouting, and providing meals or hotel accommodations if necessary.
Robinson also mentioned that this year’s passenger volume at COU is about the same as last year, with most flights operating at full capacity.
