Lubbockites among those stranded across the country due to mass flight delays and cancellations

LUBBOCK, Texas — Lubbock residents are stranded because airlines have canceled and delayed their trips.

One Lubbock family who spent their Christmas in New York City, has been stranded.

“We’re supposed to leave tomorrow. We got [a] notification in the middle of the night that our Southwest flight had been canceled.” said Kelsi James, a stranded passenger

James said the airlines gave her an option to rebook but it was easier said than done.

“There were no available flights until the first of January, when you call Southwest to [book a flight] there’s like, no availability to get a hold of anybody, the lines are super long,” James said. “And then we were forced to figure out hotels here and stay here because [prices] were going up fast, because everyone that was not… able to get out of here are having to stay extra nights.”

James told Everythinglubbock.com that she tried book a new flight with a different airline and that would’ve costed almost $3,000. In addition to flight and hotels being expensive so are rental cars.

“A lot of the rental car companies were sold out and did not have enough availability for like vans for all of us to be able to travel.” James said.

Katherine Gonzoles, another stranded passenger, is in Houston trying to get back to Lubbock and has gone through many delays turning into cancellations.

Gonzoles said she was left in the dark.

“They don’t really explain much. They’re just tell us there’s nothing that we can tell you more than what we’ve been telling everybody else, which is, cancellations [and] delays are all over,” Gonzoles said. “And it’s frustrating for everybody. So there’s really nothing being explained except for that we’re going to be compensated for everything.”

Gonzoles later said that her flight set for Wednesday, December 27, got delayed then was eventually canceled.

She was forced to stay in a hotel for an extra night and just wait.

Gonzoles said her family is driving to Houston to pick her up and bring her back to Lubbock.