More than 1,000 flights canceled at Charlotte airport from snow storm

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —A groundstop was temporarily issued at Charlotte Douglas International Airport Saturday as snow created difficult conditions on the airport’s runways.

American Airlines canceled all of its flights in and out of Charlotte Saturday afternoon. According to FlightAware, more than 1,000 flights were canceled throughout the day. An American Airlines spokesperson said the weather created hazardous conditions on the runways and roads surrounding the airport.

A 300-person team spent hours working to clear snow from the airport’s runways, taxiways, roads and sidewalks. 

Flight cancellations created a headache for thousands of travelers.

“My day has been absolutely crazy,” Gwendolynn Hines said.

“It’s been a hectic combination of cancellations, rebookings and delay notices,” Matthew Spreg said.

Spreg started his travel journey in San Antonio Friday and was trying to make it home to Raleigh. After traveling for more than 24 hours and 17 flight changes and cancellations, he still had not made it back Saturday.

“[I’m] giving up on flights,” Spreg said. “I’m now trying to use Amtrak.”

Brad White flew from Indianapolis to Charlotte on his way to Turks and Caicos. He said the weather 

“Once we got here in Charlotte, we were going to land and we were descending,” White said. “Right before we landed, we took back off again. So I guess there was something wrong with the landing strip that had too many planes on there. We landed finally. Then, we sat there for about two hours waiting to get off the flight because they didn’t have any gates for us to pull into.”

White and thousands of others spent the night in Charlotte Saturday hopeful they could continue their travel journey on Sunday.

An American Airlines spokesperson said they hope to resume flights Sunday morning.

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