After the flight stop in the USA: Thousands sleep at the airports

Tara Beatty would have been at home in Dublin several hours ago. When we meet her shortly after 6 a.m., she leans her head against a cafe table in Newark after a sleepless night.

- I was in Orlando at a conference. At first I was stuck there for five hours. And when I got here at two o'clock this morning, my connection was canceled and all the hotels were full. So what to do? she says.

Everywhere in the departure hall of Terminal B, people are sleeping. Others are tapping their phones, desperately trying to contact their airlines to see if they can rebook their trips.

Nevertheless, air traffic is underway, since late on Friday evening. The total flight stop lasted just under five hours.

But hundreds, maybe thousands of planes are parked at airports where they weren't supposed to be. Lots of flight crews are also in the wrong place.

Therefore, disruptions in air traffic are expected to continue for several days, perhaps upwards of a week. Screens at Newark airport show about a fifth of departures canceled and many more severely delayed.

Flights from Europe to the US are not expected to operate as normal for a number of days. On Saturday morning, around 30 flights from London Heathrow to US destinations were cancelled.

The Castro family from Guadalajara, Mexico, would have flown home from here on Friday evening. Now they have spent the whole night on a bench. Mother Isabel and father Miguel have barely managed to get a wink, but six-year-old daughter Yasmine is sleeping peacefully.

- It might happen that we fly tomorrow, Sunday, says Isabel Castro.

- The airline has not given us any information yet. So we stay here, we don't really have anywhere to go.

Travelers who can afford it take matters into their own hands and simply book new flights.

- I arrived here three hours ago. It turned out that my flight to Mexico City was cancelled. So now I'm sitting and booking another flight there instead, says Violeta González.

Her new flight leaves JFK airport in five hours. It is on the other side of New York and getting there by public transport takes just over two hours. A taxi journey takes at least an hour and costs the equivalent of more than SEK 1,000.

Violeta González is in the election and the twilight.

- It is very expensive, but it will probably be a taxi anyway. I have to fly on tonight home to Chiapas and don't want to miss the connection there.