Flight cancelled ahead of special New York trip, mother and daughter saypublished at 22:33 GMT 7 November
22:33 GMT 7 November
Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
Reporting from Washington’s Reagan National Airport
Ndenisarya Meekins’ flight to New York with her daughter, Sara, was cancelled, threatening what is supposed to be a special mother-daughter trip, complete with tickets to stage shows in the Big Apple.
There were no alternatives with the same airline but after an anxious search, Meekins has been able to rebook with a different carrier.
“It’s a special day for us to be up there, and we have a lot of plans in New York, so it would have been a little bit of a catastrophe if we weren’t able to make it up,” she tells me here at DCA in Washington.
Meekins says travelling at this time also feels “nerve-wracking” because of the air traffic controller shortage.
“We’re trusting that we have what we need to be safe,” she says. “You think about these folks that have been working also without pay. We’re going to go through security right now, and these are TSA agents who have been going through this process without pay and your heart goes out to them.”
For Sara, the shutdown has already disrupted the school year. The funding lapse means all Smithsonian museums have now been closed and there are no educational field trips taking place, “which has been really disappointing, it’s pretty upsetting”,.