Stuck at the airport

I had a direct flight at a reasonable time.

Two weeks ago, American Airlines changed my flight to a 6 AM departure with a long layover.

So this morning I caught an airport shuttle at 2 AM .

At 4 AM I find out the first leg is cancelled due to "heavy air traffic congestion" at the connecting airport.

I now am sitting at the airport, with a ticket for a later flight with a layover in a different city. I will arrive at my final destination at 10:30 PM .

I wonder whether I am a victim of DOGE cuts to the FAA.

Edit: I am now looking at photos of storm damage throughout the region. Yikes!

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Heartlander · 80-89, M

Flow control has been around for 50 years. I think it started in consideration of fuel prices, environmental issues and avoiding fuel emergencies. Made worse by deregulations and removing the CAB as distributor of routes.

Without flow control, planes were stacked in holding patterns at busy airports, sometimes for hours. And I believe there was one major crash as a result of a DC-8 running out of gas just a couple miles short of the runway. The price of fuel was high and airlines were inclined to not fill the tanks, because it cost fuel and $$ to carry extra fuel. Deregulation in 78 or 79 meant that airlines no longer needed CAB permission to provide services and every airline suddenly wanted to fly to Chicago, New York, San Francisco, etc.