By admin 
The ground stop at all U.S. airports may be over, but it’s little consolation to the thousands of air travelers caught up in the Federal Aviation Administration’s cancellations and delays of flights just as the holiday travel season begins.
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“We’re going to have some makeup to do,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. He said he expected flights to be “back up and operational” by peak Thanksgiving travel. But he said it may take some time for air travel to return to normal.
Here were the scenes at California airports during Friday’s ground halt:
Sacramento International Airport
At Sacramento International Airport, most travelers seemed to be taking delays in stride, with some strategizing about driving to their destinations.
Luggage began piling up at the Southwest Airlines baggage services office as passengers with layovers at the airport appeared increasingly grim.
Sheets of paper taped up across the wall and windows bore three-letter initials of various airports, with bags for their corresponding outbound flights lined up in tight rows.
Two Southwest employees fielded questions and assisted passengers with finding their bags as flights continued to be delayed and canceled as 4 p.m. approached.
Adjacent to the luggage chaos sat Megan Hall, a mom of six young boys who was traveling to Wisconsin with her family.
The family live in Asia full-time, and they were on a multiple monthlong trip across the U.S. visiting family.
As Hall kept five of her children busy, her husband was picking up their checked luggage with the sixth child in tow, with all eight members of the family waiting for relatives from Redding to come pick them up.
“(The kids are) exhausted,” Hall said. “I’m thankful for iPads.”
Ariel Scheiner, of Denver, arrived in Sacramento roughly 24 hours ago and doesn’t know when she’ll be able to head home.
The traveler came to Sacramento for a business conference and found herself sitting in Terminal A waiting for any updates United Airlines could provide on her flight.
“I got an update while I was in my Uber that we were on ground stop,” Scheiner said.
On her phone, the status page for her delayed flight said the next update would come in more than three hours.
The frequent business traveler seemed nonplussed by the unexpected snag in her plans to return home, and was appreciative of the communication from the airline.
“It just sounds like right now, there’s not really anything that people can do,” Scheiner said. “I will get home eventually.”
Sports teams at all levels were grounded at the airport Friday afternoon.
Members of the Sacramento Republic FC professional soccer team were spotted waiting at the Terminal B baggage claim.
The team have an away game scheduled against New Mexico United on Sunday, and team officials did not want to comment on the game’s status.
Collegiate athletes from UC Santa Barbara were also stranded. A co-ed group of cross-country athletes played cards and huddled together on the baggage claim floor.
Student-athlete Manny Correia said the team’s coaches were picking up vans to transport the team. They had just finished competing at a regional cross-country meet and were heading home, Correia said.
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Terminal A’s baggage claim was mostly empty at around 2:40 p.m., with bags from only one inbound Delta flight from Minneapolis on the carousel.
An overhead announcement said checked bags for severely delayed and canceled flights could be picked up at the ticket counter.
Southwest Airlines’ bag drop line at Terminal B wrapped behind the double set of escalators and almost reached the Volaris bag drop area as of 3:15 p.m.
Fresno Yosemite International Airport
At least one incoming flight from Oakland was turned away and multiple departures were called back from their gates to leave Fresno, according to Mark Thorpe, the aviation director at Fresno Yosemite International Airport.
He said the FAA made the decision and he was not briefed on why flights were halted, but he added it is rare.
“It must be pretty serious circumstances to have a nationwide grounding,” Thorpe said in a phone call to The Fresno Bee.
He said the silver lining in the airport disruption was that it didn’t come closer to Thanksgiving, the busiest time of year for most travelers. It was unclear how long the stoppage would affect flights and passengers in Fresno, he said.
San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport
Alexandria Demeglio told The Tribune she had been at the airport since 4 a.m. after her first two flights were delayed and canceled. After rebooking, her third flight was grounded.
“The universe was telling me not to travel today” she said. “The scariest part is not knowing why the planes are being grounded.”
Demeglio ended up scrapping her whole trip as a result of the repeat delays.
Another couple, who was about to enter a ride-share to leave the airport around 2:30 p.m., had already boarded their flight to Wichita, Kansas, for a family reunion when they received word of the ground stop. They were then forced to exit their plane and had to rebook their flight, they said.
And the chaos caused by the ground stop wasn’t limited only to travelers.
One Alaskan Airlines agent said it was only her second week on the job. When she clocked in for her 2:30 shift she said it was “Busy, busy, busy.”
She reported that she quickly learned how to rebook flights for Saturday, which were already filling up quickly.
“We are just trying to keep things calm,” she said.
Stockton Metropolitan Airport
At the Stockton Metropolitan Airport, Craig Lewis of Lodi discovered that his 1:55 p.m. Allegiant flight to Las Vegas had been initially delayed until 2:55 p.m.
“Then I started watching the news and seeing the backlog, the grounding, nationwide grounding, and then the flight got rescheduled for, I believe, 4:15, and then after that, it was, hey, they’re going to go ahead and lift the grounding, and, so at some point we’re gonna go,” said Lewis.
Some time before 5 p.m., Lewis was told that his flight had been cancelled, as were all remaining flights departing from the Stockton airport. It is unclear when flights will resume.
“This was going to be the first time that I took the Raider plane because the Raider plane’s parked out there,” he said. He expected the flight was going to be full because the Raiders are scheduled to play the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.
McClatchy’s Thaddeus Miller, Libbey Hanson, Sadie Dittenber and Camila Pedrosa contributed to this story.
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This story was originally published November 13, 2026 at 6:33 PM.