Tampa International Airport<\/a> as operations slowly returned to normal Monday following a winter storm that triggered widespread flight disruptions across the country.<\/p>\nAirport officials reported 195 flight delays and 101 cancellations at Tampa International Airport, significantly cutting into travelers\u2019 start to the work week. Many passengers said Sunday was the worst travel day since the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cTampa felt like the only place around the country that wasn’t hit by snow,\u201d said Jay Brunelle, who flew early Sunday from Boston to avoid getting stuck on the East Coast while traveling to Mobile, Alabama, for the Reese’s Senior Bowl.<\/p>\n
Brunelle said the decision paid off as snow blanketed much of New England. \u201cHaving a lot of friends send me pictures of the two feet of snow up in Massachusetts. Just had to get out in front of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nationwide, at least 3,700 flights were canceled Monday. Sunday marked the highest number of cancellations in a single day since the start of the pandemic, with more than 11,000 U.S. flights.<\/p>\n
The weekend winter weather created a backlog of passengers competing for seats to get home, including Steve Turley and his family, who were headed to Kansas City.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it wasn’t like we had anything crazy this first part of the week because we knew Kansas City had snow. We knew it was not going to be fun there. So when we get home we’re going to be camped out at home anyway,\u201d Turley said.<\/p>\n
Some international travelers said their plans were less uncertain. \u201cI miss my family. All of my family they are from Colombia so we are going to be there with them,\u201d said Paula Perez, who was traveling abroad with her brother after two months in Tampa.<\/p>\n
Crowded baggage claim lines and multiple delays did little to dampen everyone\u2019s spirits, even after several canceled or delayed flights to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all got things to do when we get back home. Jobs to get back to, families to get back to, driveways to shovel. Families to help out in that sense. We’re all trying to stay positive. I think if you put positive manifestations out there it helps. Fingers crossed in that regard,\u201d said Jacob Janik, a traveler waiting out the delays.<\/p>\n
The travel crunch comes less than a week before the NHL Stadium Series<\/a> game, when the Tampa Bay Lightning are set to face the Boston Bruins on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium. Travelers from the East Coast are trying to make their way to Tampa at the same time others are attempting to return home ahead of Gasparilla festivities scheduled for Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 140 delays and 86 cancellations at Tampa International Airport follow a historic weekend of U.S. flight disruptions.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-133163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}