Long lines at LaGuardia as travelers try to rebook flights

Dozens of travelers stranded by a series of catastrophic delays and cancellations at LaGuardia Airport waited in hours-long lines on Friday in hopes they could finally rebook their flights.

“It’s awful. They are sending you all the updates on the delays but on the actual cancellation [comes]not a word from anyone,” John Rodriguez, who missed a wedding in the Florida Keys after his flight to Florida was canceled Thursday morning, told The Post.

“We had a wedding at 2 p.m. today. As you can see, we’re not there.”

On Thursday, more than a third of all flights at the Queens hub were canceled on one of the worst travel days so far this summer – and chaos spilled over into Friday, when 19% of flights were canceled and another 24% were delayed in the afternoon.

And although the confusion about cancellations had largely dissipated by Friday afternoon, around 100 travelers were still standing in front of a Delta helpdesk at Terminal C of the LGA, waiting to be rebooked.

“They didn’t want to give hotel vouchers and they put me on a flight just two days later and they gave me food for just one meal for all of us,” said Mark Men, 33, who has just spent a week diaper making with his wife and his two children are vacationing in the big city and trying to return to Tennessee.

“They also said if I want more meals that I should be entitled to I have to call them and if they say yes on the phone I have to come back to the airport, the vouchers and get the vouchers are only good for the airport said Men, whose children are 3 and 5 years old.

“I do not know [what to do]. I am trying to book a hotel. We had a budget for our vacation and now we need to save some.”

Rodriguez, who is fortunately a local, went home at 10pm last night after his flight was delayed almost 12 hours and then cancelled. He’s hoping he can get a flight “somewhere near” the Florida Keys so he can at least salvage a hotel booking he made in Islamorada.

“We had reservations for Islamorada in the Keys starting tomorrow. You don’t want to refund anything. That’s like $2,000 down the drain. We’re trying to see if we can get something,” Rodriguez said.

“So far nothing.”

The couple waited two hours Thursday to see an agent and when they finally spoke to her, they were told there was nothing she could do.

“I was pretty upset. Then we had to wait an hour and a half to get our bags back,” Rodriguez said.

“[Today] My wife answered the phone. She has someone now, she’s trying to help us. She got through after almost three hours on hold.”

Amaury Severino is also trying to get to Florida for a vacation with 12 family members, including his young children, but gave up flying in the afternoon and was in the process of booking a large van to drive to Orlando.

“We booked this flight maybe a few months ago. We have prepared very well for this. I took a week off from work. This happened out of nowhere. They canceled it to us. We already answered the phone and they told us they have Sunday off for us but we have to get there today,” said Severino, 26, who lives in Queens with his three children, ages 3, 4 and 10 months.

“We’ve already forgotten flying, we’ll start driving right away… With the children it will be more difficult. We just hope they sleep more than they cry.”