TAMPA, Fla. — If you're flying to or from Florida the day after Christmas, you may be met with delays. This applies to Tampa International Airport.
According to TPA, the Federal Aviation Administration has implemented a delay program that impacts Florida airports. Because of this, some flights will be delayed.
TPA advises travelers to check directly with their airlines for the most up-to-date flight updates.
"TRAVEL ALERT: The FAA has implemented a delay program impacting Florida airports, including TPA," the airport tweeted Tuesday morning. "As a result, some flights may be delayed. Please check directly with your airline for the latest flight updates."
According to flight tracker FlightAware, 240 flights have been delayed at Tampa International Airport as of 10 p.m. on Tuesday. Information from TPA's Flight Status shows most delayed flights are from Southwest Airlines, an airline that saw mass cancellations and delays across the country just last year.
In fact, Southwest delayed 45% of their flights on Dec. 26 at TPA.
"They kept changing, sometimes it’d be sooner, sometimes it’d be later," Linda Stevens, a Southwest passenger traveling to Chicago with her husband, said.
Even with the FAA delay program, some experts said weather still played a factor.
"I’d say the biggest reason for delays moving North and South right now is the weather that’s moving in," 10 Tampa Bay's aviation expert Mark Weinkrantz said.
Weinkrantz explained that when there’s bad weather it limits who can be in the sky.
"It’s now narrowed down how much traffic can flow through the sectors from a fire hose dimension down to a beverage straw," Weinkrantz said.
Earlier this month, Southwest Airlines was ordered to pay a $35 million fine as part of a $140 million agreement to settle a federal investigation into a debacle in December 2022 when the airline canceled thousands of flights and stranded more than 2 million travelers over the holidays.
Most of the settlement will go toward compensating future passengers, which the U.S. Department of Transportation considers an incentive for Southwest to avoid repeating last winter's mess.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.