"We celebrated and gave him a cold beer as his reward for making it to the beach with us," David Whalen's wife, Heather, tells Inside Edition.
One father rented a U-Haul to go on vacation after his American Airlines flight was canceled. All rental cars were sold out.
Days after the computer glitch that caused chaos around the world, hundreds more flights have been canceled or delayed, leaving many passengers to sleep on airport floors. The problem has also led to a shortage of rental cars.
David Whalen drove the U-Haul three-and-a-half hours to meet his family at their vacation rental in Sarasota, Florida.
Whalen, his wife, Heather, and their three children spoke with Inside Edition.
"They had all left on Thursday and they had no problems. I left Friday and that's when we had the issues," David says.
"We celebrated and gave him a cold beer as his reward for making it to the beach with us," Heather says.
However, David's luggage is lost.
"I still don't have my bags. It's been an absolute nightmare," David says. "I keep getting the runaround. I don't know when the luggage is gonna come."
David's ordeal occurred amid continuous mayhem caused by Friday's global computer glitch.
"American Airlines, like the rest of the airline industry and many businesses worldwide, felt the impacts of the global CrowdStrike technology outage. After an unavoidable challenging start to the day Friday, out airline was fully recovered by the end of the day and set up for a strong operation on Saturday," American Airlines COO David Seymour said in a statement. "The team acted quickly, but importantly, they built the plan with safety as the core foundation."
American also told Inside Edition that it would reach out to David Whalen to have his bags returned.
Delta Airlines seems to have been heavily impacted. The Department of Transportation said Tuesday that it has opened an investigation into Delta's handling of the computer outage.
Lindsay Pierce tells Inside Edition she, her husband, and their four children flew from Portland to catch a connecting flight in Los Angeles on their way to Disney World in Orlando. They have been stranded at LAX.
Pierce says her family is "absolutely heartbroken."
In a statement, Delta tells Inside Edition, "Delta is in receipt of the Department’s notice of investigation and is fully cooperating. We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems across the globe inoperable. Across our operation, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers impacted by delays and cancellations as we work to restore the reliable, on-time service they have come to expect from Delta."
