A global software outage delayed flights worldwide last weekend. For one group of South Dakota students, this resulted in a simple trip home turning into a three-day ordeal.
A group of incoming Sioux Falls O’Gorman freshmen and their parents took a trip to Washington D.C. and New York. They went to the nation’s capital for a few days and then traveled to New York.
The group was aware of the CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage – but what they did not know was that flights were being delayed as a result.
So, 48 individuals – 28 teenage students and 20 adults – headed to La Guardia airport for a connecting flight to Atlanta. Their flight was delayed, but they made it to Atlanta.
Once there, the group found out their flight had been cancelled along with so many others across the country.
They tried getting a hotel, but they were all full. So, they, along with hundreds of other travelers, spent the night at the airport. Many ended up sleeping on the floor. Airport staff handed out blankets, but staff say they left a lot to be to be desired.
“When they gave us the pack it was super tiny, when you picked it up a towel was thicker than it, it was super thin,” said Penelope Swier, one of the students on the trip.
While most were stressed out or flustered, she had a different outlook.
“I’m going to be completely honest; I was pretty excited. I didn’t want to go home, so I didn’t really feel worried at all, but everybody else was super upset,” Swier said.
But adults had more to worry about. Dawn Thomas is one of the mothers who was on the trip.
“There’s nothing you could do. I called and said I won’t be there. I don’t know if many people did have to work, I mean you didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t get back to work. I think it was more the people who had people at home. Whether it be families, because like a couple teachers were on it, and they had of course husbands and children. How do you take care of that part of it was more of a stressor, I think for most people, than their job,” Thomas said.
The group remained stranded in Atlanta all Sunday but got a hotel that night. The following morning, they headed back to South Dakota on a charter bus for a 17-hour drive. The group didn’t get home until about 3 a.m. Tuesday morning.
There was one silver lining. World Classrooms – the travel company for the trip – funded meals and transportation back home.
