MSP gearing back up after nationwide grounding, but how long will disruption last?

The impact of Friday’s grounding of planes nationwide continued to impact travelers’ plans Saturday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The Details

Airlines across the country worked to recover from the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years that canceled more than 2,500 flights Saturday, caused ripple effects around the world, stranded passengers and forced pro and college sports teams to scramble for alternate transportation.

New technology being added to the nation’s air traffic control system overloaded antiquated equipment and caused ‘’intermittent’’ communications and radar gaps, leading to the flight shutdown of more than four hours, Trump administration officials said.

As of late Saturday morning at MSP, there have been 150 flight cancellations and another 64 delayed, according to the authoritative aviation tracking website Flightaware.com.

Friday’s final tally, according to the website, was 272 canceled flights and 182 delayed.

At the Twin Cities airport, travelers who were confronted with seeing their flights canceled Friday had to either make “other arrangements or stay in the airport,” said Jeff Lea, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC).

To accommodate those who decided to call MSP home for the night, airport personnel provided them with mats to sleep on, Lea said. Also, some concessions stayed open later to keep those stranded nourished, he said.

Looking ahead, “the rolling impact [of Friday’s grounding] will continue for today’s travel and likely tomorrow as airlines recover operations,” Lea said.