Brazilian completes 5 hours at Miami airport after suspension of takeoffs in the USA

Journalist Yasmin Andrade, a resident of Belo Horizonte, spent more than five hours at Miami International Airport, in the United States, this Friday (13), while trying to return to Brazil with her family. The group was surprised by the suspension of takeoffs in the country after a communication failure in air traffic control.

There are eight people on the trip: seven adults, including three elderly people, and a baby aged 1 year and 4 months. The family was returning from vacation in Orlando and had a flight scheduled for 7:10 pm, local time, with Latam.

The itinerary included connections in Bogotá, Colombia, and Guarulhos, São Paulo, before arriving in Belo Horizonte.

The five hours correspond to the total time at the airport. According to Yasmin, at the time of the interview, the family had been waiting for around two and a half hours since learning about the flight problems.

Family found out online

Yasmin said that the family found out about the suspension after reading a news story on g1. Afterwards, he contacted the airline's customer service to confirm whether the measure would affect the trip.

“When we saw the news on g1, we were scared at first, because until then no one had said anything,” he reported.

According to the journalist, employees initially had no information about the problem. About 45 minutes later, the family returned to the counter and received confirmation that there were delays.

Despite mentioning cancellations during the interview, Yasmin stated that she had not received a confirmation of cancellation of the flight itself. According to her, the panels also did not indicate any changes in boarding at that time.

"No one writes anything, no one said anything. We were just informed after informing them that, in fact, there were these delays and cancellations, but there was no public announcement, no general announcement, nothing."

Waiting without scheduled boarding

At the time of the interview, the family did not have a new departure date or information on the availability of accommodation or food. According to Yasmin, the group paid for their own food while they waited.

The journalist said that everyone was fine, but reported tiredness and concern about the lack of information, especially because she was accompanied by elderly people and a small child.

“It’s a complicated situation because it adds everyone’s tiredness from traveling, and also the tiredness of waiting.”

The family intended to look again at the airline before deciding whether to stay in the terminal or find a hotel.

"We want feedback so we can know how to proceed from this. Will we need to get a hotel here? If we are going to stay at the airport itself, because there are a lot of people."

Suspension in the United States

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered this Friday the suspension of takeoffs in the country after a communication failure that affected air traffic control centers.

The guidance was that flights scheduled to depart from American airports would remain on the ground until further notice. International flight arrivals would be assessed individually.

United States Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin stated that, until that moment, there was no evidence of an attack and attributed the interruption to a telecommunications problem.