Phil Stringer lived both a traveler’s nightmare and dream come true all in one day recently when he waited out an 18-hour flight delay to find himself the only passenger on the plane.
Stringer, 34, is the chief operating officer of a real estate brokerage and also consults with businesses about using AI. He travels frequently for work and, despite the many woes plaguing the airline industry, says his trips have generally gone smoothly — until one Sunday late last month.
His early-morning flight home from Oklahoma City to Charlotte, N.C., was incrementally delayed throughout the course of the day for maintenance reasons, so he set up shop at an airport Starbucks (and, when it closed, a table nearby). When he was finally called to his gate just before midnight, he found it nearly empty.
A record number of Americans may fly this summer. Here’s everything you need to know
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“I had thought that everyone had boarded and I was late, because no one was there,” Stringer told NPR in a Zoom interview. “But [the gate agent] was like, ‘No, honey, you’re the only one left.’ ” READ MORE
