Air travelers in North Texas faced a turbulent start to the week after heavy rain on Sunday and Monday left passengers stranded from cancellations and delays.
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field were hit particularly hard by the severe weather and subsequent flooding.
Both airports got more than 9 inches of rain in less than 24 hours between late Sunday and Monday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
In some parts of Dallas, reported rainfall clocked as high as 14 inches, per Dallas Water Utility.
Roughly 300 canceled flights and more than 1,000 delays stemmed from Sunday’s rainfall, according to the aviation tracking website FlightAware. Altogether, more than 1,300 flights were canceled nationwide on Monday.
The weather became such a concern for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines that the carrier issued a travel advisory warning for Love Field. Southwest passengers were allowed to reschedule their flight for a different day at no extra charge.
At DFW airport, the heavy rain caused a power outage that shut down four American Airlines gates. Some 250 flights were canceled due to the outage, while more than 900 got delayed.
Many annoyed passengers took to social media to voice their frustrations.
Maxwell Ferguson was stuck waiting outside a terminal before he tweeted to DFW Airport looking for an answer: “we have 50 people waiting outside terminal A10 entry for a terminal link because of the power outage. Can we get a couple [vans] over here?!”
The airport was quick to respond, tweeting back, “We’re aware of a power outage affecting several gates in Terminal A. Our team is working as quickly as they can to get power restored. Thank you for your patience.”
In a subsequent tweet, the airport added, “We’re sorry for the delay and know your time is important. We’re aware of a backup in service and are working to provide shuttles for our busiest locations. Our drivers are in constant communication with our dispatch team and a shuttle will be at your location shortly.”
Complicating matters further for potential air travelers, up to 50 traffic signals lost power or failed to work properly, the city’s transportation department said Monday, making it difficult for people to make their scheduled flights due to various flood-related traffic disruptions.
