I was flying over Allentown (KABE) yesterday at 3 PM in my Piper Arrow. Airliners were stacked up waiting for KLGA. They started to get low on fuel. The Controller inquired and said “next update will be 30 minutes, let me know if you need to divert.” An AA flight asked what was going on (weather was good) and the Controller said, “there is no room on the ground to park any more planes.” Planes started to diverting to JFK, Harrisburg, Allentown, and elsewhere. Does this happen often?
Looking at thefaa advisories database for yesterday, it looks like it was an awful day for anyone flying along the eastern seaboard. Around 3pm EDT (1900 UTC), LGA issued a ground stop for delta airlines (and their subcarriers) flights only. This is just speculation, but I bet that had to do with DAL running out of gate space. Also, there were thunderstorms that moved down the coast, and for a while there were no routes available for flights between new york/boston/dc and florida/atlanta, so I bet that caused a boatload of backups all over the place.
If anyone else has ‘inside’ information (or just more speculation), jump right in!