‘Wild Christmas Eve’: Strangers stranded in airline chaos team up for road trip |

Beyond hours of anger and frustration due to Southwest Airlines turmoil Christmas Over the weekend, some passengers were relieved by an (unexpected) companion.

With airlines squabbling, some stranded people have decided to trust strangers more than airlines to go on their trips.

Titus Converse, 25, hopped in the car with a couple he didn’t know, Becky Stroble and Tori Saari. After waiting for hours with no specific answer, the pair decided: Drive from Phoenix to Sacramento.

converse is trip Like others on a similar journey on social media.

“We agreed that a ride in the car was the only surefire way to get home, and we took pictures to remember this wild Christmas Eve,” he said. I have written on Twitter.

“Strangers trusted me because ‘I had the right amount of idiots,'” he wrote in the same thread.

Just over 12 hours after posting the first tweet announcing the trip, Converse shared that everyone made it home safely.

Converse’s journey was hardly out of the ordinary amid the crisis touted as unprecedented in the US aviation industry.

Bridget Schuster recorded a similar but longer drive. florida She and three other passengers (strangers to each other) flew to Ohio after receiving cancellations that kept them from flying until Christmas Eve at the earliest and deciding to take matters into their own hands. I headed.

“No serial killer vibe so far,” she said. joked Among other updates on TikTok showing the group brushing their teeth on the road and getting bruised trying to get a fork at Chipotle.

The group looks fine throughout the video, laughing at the storm and the bruises, even alone make a snow angel On land with little snow.

“None of us had earbuds,” said fellow passenger Greg Henry. Said We are Green Bay. “We’re not doing our thing, we’re kind of riding together. We’ve created a community out there.”

Leaving the United States, three other strangers met at the Baltimore airport and drove to Austin.

“Our only option was a flight to Dallas on Friday. It was on the waiting list,” they said. Said KVUE ABC.

Other airlines were offering prices as high as $2,000 amid the crisis, but car rentals were one-tenth that price, so the group got the last rental available. .

At the airport in Sacramento, Deborah Rombout, who was heading back to Los Angeles, met three other stranded women when her second flight was cancelled.

Rombout’s journey came 14 years after her. Starred in a Southwest Airlines Super Bowl commercialAfter her flight to San Diego was cancelled, she met Joanne, 75, who was waiting next door.

After the two were paired up, I met a third group member, 65-year-old Debbie, while searching for a package in the “Bag Graveyard.”

They found a fourth member at a car rental service.

‘I don’t know if I asked them or if Debbie knew I needed help,’ says Jamie Ritchie, 44. told the LA Times.

“It was just women helping women,” said Rombout.

They also stopped by Debbie’s sister’s house in Stockton, ate leftover mac and cheese, and received a warm welcome.

Airlines have canceled more than 2,500 flights More than 2,300 cancellations were announced on Thursday alone, according to flight tracking service FlightAware.New York Times estimated Southwest Airlines nearly canceled 11,000 flights from thursday.

Airlines now face a call from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Refund passengers for canceled flights Expenses such as accommodation and meals. The Senate Commerce Committee is also investigating the issue.