A whopping more than 1,600 flights around the US were cancelled on Friday as storms continue to ravage the East Coast and airlines grapple with the influx of summer travelers. As of Saturday morning, there were already nearly 500 more cancellations.
On Friday night, flight tracking site FlightAware indicated that more than 1,600 flights coming into and going out of the United States had been canceled. Notably, the top airports seeing those cancellations included New York’s LaGuardia, Newark Liberty International and Reagan National Airport outside Washington.
In addition to the volume of cancellations, the tracking site also clocked more than 8,000 delays in and out of the US on Friday. By Saturday morning, the delays for the day were already more than 1,600.
Keeping up with summer travel has proved to be a feat for airlines this year, as cancellations and delays have run rampant. Friday’s day of disruption was among the worst, falling just short of beating the mass delays seen in mid-June around Father’s Day weekend.
Luckily for many travelers who have seen mass delays or cancellations, they now may be entitled to compensation. On Monday, Democrats introduced the Cash Refunds for Flight Cancellations Act, which “would provide consumers an enforceable right to a full cash refund for flight and ticket cancellations.”
“The bill codifies the Department of Transportation rule requiring major airlines to offer consumers a cash refund if the airline cancels or significantly delays a flight, and provides consumers a new right to a cash refund if they cancel their ticket up until 48 hours of the flight’s scheduled departure,” explains the act, which was introduced by Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Representatives Steve Cohen (TN-09), Jesús G. “Chuy” García (IL-04), and Jamie Raskin (MD-08).