left thousands of travelers stranded in US airports and on planes Wednesday morning, prompting passengers to find creative ways to wait out delays or else give up altogether.
A technical problem involving the FAA's Notice to Air Missions system temporarily grounded all domestic departures until 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning. The FAA has since, according to a tweet from US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. While some passengers called it quits and went back home, others were left to kill time amid an estimated 5,000 delays, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.
One group of strangers bonded in an Indiana airport over card games during the wait for their flights to be rescheduled, according to a"In true Indiana fashion, a card game has broken out amongst stranded passengers that are strangers at the Indy airport." the tweet read. Not long after, they were snapping selfies to capture the memory of the rare nationwide travel meltdown that brought them together. Travelers who were leaving home to fly elsewhere seemed less desperate about the significant delays. Due to the earliness of the outage, some took it as an opportunity to go home and get some extra hours of sleep before attempting to travel again.