Travel chaos can appear in different forms and has affected many BVN students this year. According to the Circum aviation analytics data, 2025 shows high rates of delayed flights and cancellations due to the weather and airline inconsistencies. Students at BVN share the travel issues they have experienced this year.
The snow in Kansas during Thanksgiving break changed many flight timings and travel plans. Junior Phoebe Zmijewski spent her Thanksgiving break in Hawaii. Experiencing a successful flight on her way there, she ran into issues as she flew back.
“My flight from Hawaii to Phoenix was just fine, but then when we got to Phoenix, our flight was delayed,” Zmijewski said. “I want to say it took two extra hours because of the snow in Kansas at the time.”
Zmijewski and her family boarded the plane, but then were told to unboard. After having to wait hours at the airport, Zmijewski didn’t enjoy the experience.
“I was so tired because I was jet lagged, and I was just too frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t go home,” Zmijewski said. “I was upset, distraught even, that I couldn’t be at my house.”
Sophomore Shreeya Iyer shared a similar experience with traveling over the summer. After spending some time in France, Iyer and her family were waiting in the Paris airport for their flight to Washington, DC. When it was time to board the plane, her family was told to stay back due to an issue with their tickets.
“The airline said they wouldn’t let us on the plane because our tickets were the wrong formatting,” Iyer said.
After rebooking the tickets to see if she could fly again, Iyer was still stopped for the same reason. The airport provided Iyer’s family with paper tickets, but the airline only accepted digital tickets. Iyer and her family had to stay in a hotel for another day-and- a-half.
“I was really p****d off because [the airline] made excuses to stop us from boarding the flight,” Iyer said. “They said I have too many bags, when none of them were being checked in, and then that there weren’t enough seats, when my family booked business class.”
Consequently, Iyer had to miss her orientation and the first day of her summer job that was planned the day after her scheduled departure. Adding to her frustration, she wished that the problem had been avoided instead of having to make up her day at work.
“That just made me really mad because it’s not like it was our problem. It was their [the airline’s] problem and it could have been completely avoided,” Iyer said.
Experiences and complications like these prompted Zmijewski and Iyer to feel differently about traveling after their trips in 2025.
“I honestly hated planes for a while, and I have a great fear of flying, so it adds to the fact that planes are bad and that I should just drive places,” Zmijewski said.
On the other hand, Iyer travels frequently and she realized that all she can do is work through the complications.
“I travel a lot and have been in a lot of different annoying travel situations, but it just made me think that I have to be patient,” Iyer said. “It’s important to just remember that everything happens for a reason, and there will always be complications, and you have to work through them.”
