Tulsa Youth Mission Trip Canceled After Travel Issues

A Tulsa church sent a group of 44 people on a mission trip to the Bahamas last weekend, but they never made it out of Dallas.

The choir director for Boston Avenue United Methodist Church says the hardest part about this trip wasn't all the logistics to get everyone back home. It was looking all of these students in the eye and telling them everything they planned and worked for wasn't going to happen. 

A yearly trip meant as a thank you to the youth choir never actually got off the ground.

“We spent over 30 hours these two days in the airport in Tulsa and in Dallas Fort Worth,” Joel Pancisera, Director of Music, said. “Our total amount of flying time was 45 minutes.”

Pancisera says they've been planning this choir tour for a year. All of that planning, only to sit at Tulsa International Airport for about 16 hours. 

"We never knew why it was delayed. The weather was perfect. There were many other flights flying out of the airport to Dallas Fort Worth; it's just our flight was canceled; we heard that there was some staffing issues about that particular flight," said Pancisera.

They eventually made it to Dallas but missed their connection. 

"Your flight is canceled, you don't know what your options are, your group is waiting at the gate, and representatives are waiting in a line that's over a thousand people long for seven-plus hours," said Pancisera.

The church notified parents in an email of the change of plans from American Airlines. 

Their new itinerary would take the group of 44 to Miami and on to Nassau. But then it changed again, sending them non-stop to Nassau.

Their final itinerary routed them to Wisconsin, North Carolina, and finally, Nassau. 

The group would have arrived Tuesday and lost four days of their week-long trip.

Joel says that's when he decided to cancel the trip.

"It was horrible, and everyone was crying, and it was just hard to continue from that point," Morris Vanbeber, a youth group member, said.

The group took a charter bus from Dallas back to Tulsa on Monday.

It wasn't the welcome home they expected, and it was a lot earlier than planned. 

"I did not expect to be greeted by balloons and cheering. I had no idea. I thought we were just going to come here and just drive home," Lyndon Vanbeber said.

American Airlines sent News On 6 a statement saying:

“This past weekend, American’s largest hub in Dallas-Fort Worth experienced severe weather, which impacted airport operations. Our Customer Success team is reaching out to impacted customers to learn more about their experience and address their concerns. We know it can be frustrating when travel doesn’t go as planned, and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”