Busiest travel day of the season forces many passengers to miss flights at OIA

ORLANDO, Fla. — A chaotic holiday travel season is peaking on Monday at Orlando International Airport.

162,000 thousand people are expected to pass through the airport on what is expected to be the busiest day of the holiday travel season.

Monday brought with it long lines at the TSA and some trouble for passengers who were trying to make it home after the holidays.

Some of the worst lines were at the check-in counters, especially for Frontier Airlines passengers.

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Some passengers who were supposed to fly out today won’t be able to catch a flight home for several days and several arrivals and departures are also getting delayed because of an FAA restriction on southbound flights.

Summer Voth is one of the hundreds of passengers who faced a 30-plus minute wait at security to get to her gate but for her, the travel troubles started hours earlier.

“This is by far the most insane travel experience I ever had,” Voth said. “The kiosks are down. There are lines wrapped around the corner. There are hundreds of people over there trying to get their flights and there are like 2 people working the counter.”

She said her Frontier Airlines flight back home to Las Vegas was delayed twice.

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Katherine Polanco said she also got caught in the mess and told Channel 9 that when her mother got to the airport at 5 a.m. the check-in lines were much worse.

Her mother’s 9 a.m. flight to Santo Domingo didn’t wait. Polanco said the airlines are now charging her $100 to catch the next direct flight to Santo Domingo four days from now.

“The lines were too long. There was no organization on the part of the airlines,” Polanco said. “She was here three hours before the flight, so she wasn’t late. It was crowded.”

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Her mother’s 9 a.m. flight to Santo Domingo didn’t wait. Polanco said the airlines are now charging her $100 to catch the next direct flight to Santo Domingo four days from now.

Those passengers arriving at OIA today also got caught in a traffic jam. The FAA said they slowed traffic volume down into Florida because of a computer issue.

Those issues caused an average delay of 176 minutes, with nearly half of the inbound flights impacted.

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