Despite flight cancellations on Memorial Day, MIA registers record numbers of passengers

Torrential rains led to at least 100 flight cancellations in and out of Miami International Airport on Monday, but the airport still registered record numbers of passengers this holiday weekend — even higher than those recorded before the pandemic-driven paralysis of travel.

As of Monday morning, 68 arrivals and 38 departures had been canceled at MIA mostly due to Sunday’s stormy weather, said Greg Chin, the communications director for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department. Flights got diverted to other airports, he said.

The local cancellations were part of a larger nationwide trend of travel disruption due to foul weather across the northeast and southeast. Nearly 400 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Monday, and at least 1,700 were delayed, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks aviation data.

On Sunday, about 500 flights were canceled across the country, and about 5,200 flights were delayed, FlightAware shows.

Dan Delgado, from Coconut Creek in Broward, said he boarded a plane in London at about noon local time Sunday and planned to arrive at MIA at about 5 p.m. Instead, he didn’t arrive until at about 1:30 a.m. Monday.

Because of the low visibility, his plane circled the Miami airport for about an hour until it ran out of fuel and got diverted to Orlando. There, he sat on the tarmac for about three hours waiting for a fuel truck, he said.

The plane refueled, but then passengers were notified that the flight crew needed to leave because they had worked for too long according to federal regulations, he said. The plane stayed in central Florida overnight.

After 12 hours, Delgado, 47, said he decided to rent a car and drive down to South Florida, instead of waiting to see when American Airlines would re-book the travel.

He sat on one of the last rows, about 42 or 43, and when he finally left the plane, the airline crew at the exit who were handing out cards with contact information so passengers could reschedule had already run out of the cards.

“I was exhausted,” Delgado, 47, said. “I am just so exhausted. I had planned for Monday to be a recovery day and I’m definitely really needing it.”

Record numbers

Despite the woes, however, MIA saw an increase in passengers.

“Our passenger traffic this weekend has been the most ever for a Memorial Day weekend,” Chin said in an email.

Flight and passenger information for Memorial Day this year won’t be available until Tuesday, Chin said. But according to a report he provided, from Thursday to Sunday, about 4,000 flights and about 570,500 people flew in or out of MIA.

For Memorial Day weekend in 2021, the airport serviced about 4,100 flights and about 589,100 people.

For 2019’s Memorial Day weekend, the last holiday before the novel coronavirus struck, MIA checked about 4,500 flights and 615,800 passengers.

MIA’s main account on Twitter warned travelers its garages were “reaching capacity due to record-breaking” travel, and advised them to arrive at least three hours before their departure time and to consider being dropped off by friends or family.

Chin said garages stayed open all day Sunday and as of Monday morning remained open.

This story was originally published May 30, 2022 at 4:39 PM.

Jimena Tavel

Miami Herald

786-442-8014

Jimena Tavel covers higher education for the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. She’s a bilingual reporter with triple nationality: Honduran, Cuban and Costa Rican. Born and raised in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, she moved to Florida at age 17. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2018, and joined the Herald soon after.