WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Normal travel days are already stressful, but add the largest technology outage in history into the mix, and suddenly a normal travel day seems like paradise.
“I’m pretty beat, exhausted, really frustrated, but they can’t do anything about it,” traveler Lydia Acosta said.
Acosta’s day started at 3 in the morning. She flew out of LAX initially and saw the impacts of the Microsoft and CrowdStrike outages almost instantly.
“We already saw people outside. It was lines all throughout the outside of it,” Acosta said. “There were people there this morning who had been there since 9 last night.”
Acosta said the situation only grew when she arrived at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
“There were people just sitting on the ground, people crying, there’s people waiting outside the service area trying to get on another flight, and they couldn’t get on one because they missed it,” Acosta said. “You could barely walk through the airport in Charlotte, it was terrible.”
Whether you were traveling from the west coast or the northeast, the outage seemed to have an impact.
Sarah Lindahl left from Albany around 1 p.m.. She was supposed to arrive in Wilmington around 4:30 but didn’t actually touch down until 6:30.
Despite all the issues, Lindahl said she had no plans to carry the baggage of the day into her family vacation at Ocean Isle Beach.
“I feel fortunate — I don’t think I’ve had the brunt of the trouble with this,” Lindahl said. “Everybody gets a little frustrated with situations, but it doesn’t really help it. Sometimes, it only makes it worse.”
Both Lindahl and Acosta say they saw several passengers getting angry with airport workers as they dealt with the outage.
Acosta urges everyone, like the planes earlier Friday morning, to stay grounded.
“Put yourself in their shoes,” Acosta said. “It’s not easy working at an airport in general, so when something like this happens it makes the pressure ten times worse and makes them feel worse. So why make them feel bad?”
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