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Frustrations linger after flight disruptions at Valley airports

Frustrations linger after flight disruptions at Valley airports
1 year 1 week 3 days ago Tuesday, September 26 2023 Sep 26, 2023 September 26, 2023 6:23 PM September 26, 2023 in News - Local

Flights in and out of the Valley are back on track following Monday's ground stop.

It was only temporary, but it caused a lot of headaches for people.

What was supposed to be a short flight from Austin to Harlingen turned into an overnight headache for Patti Bradley.

"I spent the majority of my afternoon in the Austin airport and ended up having my flight canceled and an unexpected overnight," Bradley said.

She is one of dozens of passengers dealing with the fallout following Monday's travel chaos.

Bradley lives in Laguna Vista, and she was in Austin visiting her daughter. She says as soon as she got to the Austin airport, her flight was delayed. She waited about an hour.

"That's when she announced that it was delayed due to a tower shutdown and that no flights were going into any of the three Valley airports," Bradley said.

Bradley was finally able to make it home Tuesday morning after being automatically rebooked for the first flight out, but it wasn't without frustration.

"No vouchers offered, not even for a meal, and the fact, a lot of people, like I said, had to stay overnight in hotels, no vouchers for hotels, no credit for any Ubers, nothing was offered because they said it was a tower maintenance, and it fell under mechanical, and they weren't required to reimburse for that," Bradley said.

Valley International Airport Director of Aviation Marv Everly said a drop in communication with approach control out of Corpus Christi was the reason for the issues.

However, the FAA said in a statement, "Departures were paused while repairs to a communications system were made at the Houston Air Route Traffic Control Facility."

Valley International says they're working on getting in touch with the FAA to figure out what happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.

As of right now, if you have a flight out of the Valley, make sure you're staying up to date with your airline.

Watch the video above for the full story.

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