CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It was a quiet Thursday morning at Charlotte Douglas International Airport as stranded passengers, who should have been on Wednesday evening flights, tried to get some sleep.
By 10 a.m. on Thursday, 42 flights bound for Charlotte had been canceled on Thursday alone. On Wednesday, Charlotte topped the list of airports with cancelations, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. In total Wednesday, the airport saw the cancelation of 122 outbound flights and the cancelation of 83 inbound flights.
"This is just like supposed to be a quick layover stop and it was just chaos," Shannon Teske said.
Teske has been traveling for over 36 hours trying to get to Des Moines, Iowa from Glasgow, Scotland.
When storms blew through the Carolinas Wednesday evening, it created a domino effect on flights throughout the night and into the next day.
Jay Fletcher was supposed to travel home to Iowa after a trip to the Cayman Islands. She said she was stuck on the plane for hours and then ended up stuck in Charlotte for the night.
"Delay, delay, delay, delay," Fletcher said. "Our pilot was supposed to come and he never came and then three more pilots canceled on us and they told us to get off of our plane."
Charlotte Douglas sent out a warning on social media for people to check with their airlines for flight statuses, but travelers say little has been done to remedy the situation now.
"I stood in line upstairs for five-and-a-half hours for rebooking and they were able to get me on a flight -- I’m not even on the flight -- I’m on standby and I know I’m not the only one on standby," Teske said.
Flights continue to be delayed on Thursday.
"A lady that was on our flight booked another flight back to Iowa and she was supposed to leave at 9:30 in the morning," Fletcher said. "She’s already pushed back till 12:30 a.m. Friday night. So it's just been a mess here."
“Last night, here at the airport, people were everywhere. Sleeping on the floors and of course once you go out you can’t get back in,” explained Mike Higgins, who told us his flight was delayed on the way to Ohio for his daughter’s wedding.
Another traveler told us there was also chaos outside of the airport.
“They had thousands of people out there, trying to get a taxi, hotels, all of the rental cars were gone,” Wendy Waters explained. She says her flight to Orlando for her son’s 8th birthday was cancelled.
The number of delays and cancellations was growing overnight and into the morning, according to FlightAware. WCNC Charlotte reached out to the airport for further comment. The airport is continuing to ask passengers to work with their airlines to find a solution.
Contact Destiny Richards at drichards5@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.