LaGuardia delays today are some of the worst New York has seen in months. Thunderstorms parked over the Northeast on Friday and shut down flights at LaGuardia, JFK, Newark and Boston for hours at a time. By evening, flight tracking showed LaGuardia had canceled 107 flights, about one in five departures, and delayed more than 300 more. I know because I was one of the people stuck there.
Latest Updates
Saturday, Nov. 7, 7:10 p.m. ET: LaGuardia had another rough patch Saturday afternoon. The FAA briefly held flights headed to the airport because of strong winds, in a ground stop that ran until about 3:30 p.m. It has since lifted, and flights are back to running with only minor delays.
Friday, Nov. 6, 6:30 p.m. ET: The ground stops are over, but the damage is done. Flight tracking shows LaGuardia canceled 107 of its roughly 550 departures today, about one in five, and delayed more than 300 others. Newark had 59 cancellations and more than 250 delays, and Boston had 39 cancellations. LaGuardia departures are now running about an hour late and improving, but flights headed there are still being held close to three hours on average, so expect delays to ripple into tonight.
What's Happening
The trouble started Friday morning, when storms rolled across the New York area during the morning rush. The FAA put all three New York airports under ground stops, which keep planes headed to an airport from taking off wherever they are. Those stops kept getting pushed back through the afternoon, from late morning to as late as 4 p.m. at LaGuardia.
Planes trying to leave had their own problem. The routes out of New York, especially the ones heading south, were blocked by storm cells, so controllers could only send departures out one at a time as gaps opened up. That's why so many flights sat in long takeoff lines with no departure time at all. By the afternoon, departures were running close to three hours late at LaGuardia and more than three and a half hours late at Newark, and the backups had spread to Philadelphia, Washington National and Boston.
I Got Sent Back to the Gate
My American Airlines flight to Tampa was supposed to leave Friday morning. It got delayed before boarding, and then, once we were on, it sat in the takeoff line for hours, inching forward and stopping again as the storms moved through. Out my window was a row of empty Spirit Airlines jet bridges, which felt about right for the day. Spirit stopped flying in May. Those gates looked about as close to leaving as we were.
Eventually, we were taken back to the gate and let off the plane, apparently because we were running up against the federal three-hour limit on tarmac waits. The gate area was packed with people on phones trying to rebook, and the board kept flipping to later times. A little before 3 p.m., they started boarding us again for a second try.
I fly a lot, and days like this are still exhausting. It isn't anyone's fault at the gate, and the crews were doing their best. But when every flight in the region is waiting on the same storms, there's not much anyone can do except wait with you.
The 3-Hour Tarmac Rule
If you've never heard of it, here's how it works. On a domestic flight, US rules say an airline can't keep you on a plane sitting on the tarmac for more than three hours without giving you the chance to get off. On international flights, the limit is four hours. The only exceptions are safety or security reasons, or when air traffic control says going back to the gate would cause major problems.
While you're stuck, the airline also has to give you food and water within two hours, keep the bathrooms working, get you medical care if you need it and update you on what's happening every 30 minutes. Once you're back at the gate, the clock starts over, which is why a lot of planes today got sent back, reboarded and sent out to try again.
What You're Owed
If your flight is canceled, or delayed by three hours or more on a domestic trip, and you decide not to fly, you're owed a full cash refund, not a voucher unless you agree to one. We break down the rest in our guide to what airlines owe you after a cancellation.
The catch is that weather delays like today's don't come with free meals or hotels in the US. Airlines only promise those when the delay is their fault, like a crew or maintenance problem. Thunderstorms count as nobody's fault, even if it doesn't feel that way after your fourth hour at the gate.
What to Do If You're Flying Out of New York
Rebook in your airline's app instead of waiting in the gate line. It's almost always faster, and seats on the next flights go quickly on a day like this. On American, you can also stand by for an earlier flight right in the app.
Keep an eye on your flight's status before you leave for the airport, and expect delays to ripple into the evening even after the storms clear, since planes and crews are out of position all over the country. If you have a choice for your next trip, morning flights are usually your best bet for avoiding this kind of mess, which we found when we tracked 4,000 flights by time of day. And if you're wondering which New York airport to pick next time, we compared all three in our look at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark.
