Passengers of American Airlines expressed frustration and anger after being stranded for 24 hours due to a fuel leak on Labor Day weekend. The flight, which was headed from Texas to Paris, was diverted to Nashville after the crew reported a mechanical issue. According to flight tracking services, the plane was airborne for just over an hour before being rerouted.
One passenger, Carlota Montoya, described the experience as a “nightmare” and a “travel fail”. She stated that they were given a hotel and a $12 meal voucher, but no further explanation or compensation. Montoya and other passengers lost a day in Paris, causing many to miss important business meetings and vacation plans.
American Airlines issued an apology and explained that diversions are made with safety as the top priority. It is unclear if passengers were held on the plane or at the Nashville airport during the diversion. The airline has been contacted for more information.
The American Airlines flight was not the only travel headache for Labor Day vacationers. An air traffic control radio outage caused major delays and groundings at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey. Flights arriving from across the US and Canada were affected, with average delays of 2. 5 hours and some flights delayed up to four hours. Departing flights, however, were not impacted.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that the outage was due to an equipment issue, causing air traffic controllers to lose their radio frequencies. The alert affected flights arriving between August 28 at 12:22 pm ET and August 29 at 11:59 pm. Travelers expressed their frustrations on social media, with some reporting multiple delays within a short period of time.
Newark Airport warned travelers to expect busier than usual travel and recommended that they budget extra time for parking, check-in, and security. The airport did not acknowledge the current outage. This is the second outage in the past 24 hours affecting controllers at the Philadelphia ATC center, which manages Newark airspace. The previous outage occurred on Wednesday between 6:30 pm and 7:30 pm, causing communication issues between planes and controllers.
To manage the situation, the FAA has been limiting flights into Newark to 28 per hour and spacing arriving planes about 20 miles apart. This is down from the usual 34 flights per hour. The FAA had relocated control of the Newark airspace to Philadelphia last year in an effort to address staffing and congestion in the New York City area. However, the airport has experienced several outages this year, with two occurring in May.
On May 19, a brief two-second outage occurred at the Philadelphia TRACON radar approach control facility. The FAA reported no flight disruptions, but an investigation is ongoing due to ongoing concerns about equipment reliability. This was the fourth reported outage in a month, with others occurring on May 11, May 9, and April 28.