Major airport chaos April 13

A surge of flight delays hit Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Washington Dulles and Phoenix on Sunday, April 13, stranding travelers across domestic and international routes. (usatoday.com) Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport logged 322 disruptions on April 13, including 300 delays and 22 cancellations, and Spirit Airlines accounted for 20 of those cancellations. Broward County also said routine overnight maintenance on Fort Lauderdale’s north and south runways was scheduled to begin Monday, April 13. (traveltourister.com) (broward.org) Miami International Airport recorded 138 delayed flights and one cancellation on April 13, with affected carriers including Spirit Airlines, Air Canada, Delta Air Lines, KLM and Qatar Airways. The Federal Aviation Administration said Miami was also seeing gate-hold and taxi delays of 15 minutes or less. (thetraveler.org) (faa.gov) Washington Dulles International Airport saw dozens of delays and several cancellations on April 13, with disruptions touching United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines and Lufthansa flights. Earlier Federal Aviation Administration updates for Dulles showed general departure delays of 15 minutes or less. (thetraveler.org) (faa.gov) Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport reported more than 160 delayed flights on April 13, and The Arizona Republic said 136 flights were delayed and eight were canceled by 12:30 p.m. local time. The Federal Aviation Administration said a departure delay was briefly in effect that morning because of high traffic volume. (thetraveler.org) (azcentral.com) The pattern stretched across very different airports: Fort Lauderdale and Miami are major Florida gateways for leisure and Latin America traffic, Dulles handles long-haul service to Europe and the Middle East, and Phoenix is one of the country’s busiest domestic connecting airports. When delays stack up at several hubs on the same day, crews, aircraft and passengers can all miss their next assignments. (miami-airport.com) (thetraveler.org) (skyharbor.com) Federal Aviation Administration status pages for Miami, Dulles and Phoenix did not show major destination-specific ground stops, which points to a day of network congestion more than a single nationwide shutdown. Phoenix’s airport said weather or conditions elsewhere in the country can affect local flights even when the airport itself is operating normally. (faa.gov 1) (faa.gov 2) (faa.gov 3) (skyharbor.com) South Florida had already been dealing with airport disruption earlier in April, when CBS Miami reported hundreds of delays and cancellations tied to severe weather, spring break traffic and the partial federal government shutdown. That left little slack in schedules going into the April 13 travel rush. (cbsnews.com) By Monday night, the immediate picture was clear: April 13 was not one bad airport day but a multi-hub disruption, with Florida hit hardest by raw numbers and Phoenix and Dulles showing how quickly delays can spread through the national system. (traveltourister.com) (thetraveler.org 1) (thetraveler.org 2) (thetraveler.org 3)