Spring break travel chaos as 15,000 flights canceled or delayed due to technical issues and storms in Florida

Hundreds of thousands of spring breakers were stranded at airports across America this weekend as major airlines faced serious travel problems.

Around 15,000 domestic flights were either canceled or postponed on Saturday and Sunday due to bad weather and technical problems, according to Flight Tracker.

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On Saturday alone, 6,049 flights within, to or from the United States. were delayed and 1,934 were cancelled FlightAware.

The tracker reported Sunday had less disruption but still rose to 5,864 delayed flights and 1,659 canceled flights.

That makes a total of 15,506 flights that were either delayed or canceled on Saturday and Sunday.

Orlando International Airport and Miami International Airport were the two airports with the most delays and cancellations of scheduled flights.

In case of Southwest AirlinesTechnology problems started the delays Saturday morning, before weather and air traffic control delays in Florida meant problems continued into the evening.

“Planned overnight technology maintenance from Friday to Saturday delayed some of ours earliest flights on Saturday morning and canceled a total of seven flights,” a Southwest spokesman said.

“These were among more than 180 flights proactively canceled prior to Saturday due to anticipated weather and airspace congestion challenges in central Florida.”

The airline said flashes from Florida storms forced crews to suspend ramp operations at several airports in the state, causing additional delays.

Southwest ended Saturday with about 600 canceled flights out of a planned 3,600 departures.

“Almost all of these go directly back to weather and/or airspace management programs.”

The company said most of the delayed and canceled flights on Sunday were issued proactively due to the disruptions on Saturday.

Most major airlines such as United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Airlines have released statements attributing the delays to this heavy thunderstorms over the weekend.

“Thanks to the safety-focused work of Delta employees, our Sunday operations recovered from severe Florida weather and air traffic control restrictions earlier in the weekend,” said a Delta spokesman.

United Airlines said it had only about 70 cancellations out of 3,700 flights on Saturday.

“This has primarily impacted our Florida stations and we have been working diligently to get customers back to their destinations as quickly as possible,” a United spokesman said.

American Airlines did not immediately respond to The Sun’s request for comment.