SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A gnarly night in the nation's airports meant that many of you woke up in a different city than you were planning to today. Alexis White (ph) was hoping to be in Nashville.
ALEXIS WHITE: I mean, Delta's telling me it's delayed by an hour. So maybe they'll let us into the Delta lounge.
SIMON: Saw a notification on her phone about an hour after every flight in the country was grounded while she waited at Washington National Airport and left to wonder if there had been another major cyberattack.
WHITE: I'm not, like, a conspiracy theorist, but Outlook just crashed, and then all the flights are grounded today. So, I mean, that's where my head immediately went.
SIMON: Thousands of people are still stranded, far from home, left staring at their phones, trying to rebook, crowd it around service desks, trying to figure out what happens next. Suze DiPietro (ph) just gave up on her flight.
SUZE DIPIETRO: My husband, my hero, is driving down from New Jersey to come get me.
SIMON: While happy to have found her way out of the airport, she was still a little concerned. She wasn't willing to take a train or any other public transit, just in case they had been compromised too.
DIPIETRO: Our entire nation is in this situation.
SIMON: Maddie Cabana (ph) and Joe Romano (ph) of Gaithersburg, Maryland, trying to get to Cape Canaveral for a cruise that leaves today.
JOE ROMANO: For me it was a big eye roll. I mean, I travel a lot for work already, so I was just like, of course, like, it always happens to me. Not again.
SIMON: Cruises wait for no one, so they were considering driving all night to get to Florida in time. They spent the night watching for updates. Their flight was rebooked bright and early - and canceled again.
MADDIE CABANA: Obviously, I hope everyone's safe and I hope everyone's OK. Just rather inconvenient.
SIMON: Maddie Cabana and Joe Romano finally stumbled into the Orlando International Airport around 8:30 a.m. this morning. As for the cause of this nationwide travel meltdown, officials briefed reporters at the White House last night, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy fresh off a flight himself. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the incident was still under investigation but that it did not appear to be a cyberattack.
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MARKWAYNE MULLIN: What it appears to be right now is as Secretary Duffy and FAA was going in and putting patches into the system, they were putting new equipment and new technology. And that new equipment, new technology just wasn't - it was overwhelming the older system. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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