Adam Schefter took cab from Detroit to New York around airline snafu, called ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ while en route

There have long been stories of people in the sports world unable to catch a flight and choosing to make a long drive or take a cab or Uber instead. Some of them are even true, as ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter showed Monday. Schefter called in to The Pat McAfee Show while in a cab that he’d booked to take him and his family from Detroit back home to New York, with that move coming after he had two flights canceled amidst long delays (presumably in fallout from the CrowdStrike update technological snafu Friday):

“Airlines are basically being shut down and I’ve never seen a scene like I saw last night..

I hired a cab to drive us back to New York and we’re still four hours out” ~ @AdamSchefter #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/3Vgg3GIjhG

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) July 22, 2024

Here’s how Schefter describes this, starting around 0:35:

“We were attempting to fly back last night when there was a complete meltdown. I know that there’s a president that has withdrawn from the race, but it is going on across the country right now, where basically airlines are being shut down and people are being forced…I’ve never seen a scene like I saw at Detroit Metro.

“We were in line for our flight [feed dies]…for six hours before they canceled our flight at 1 in the morning. It looked like a nightclub, everybody out trying to get an Uber or a Lyft or a cab or whatever it is. Got back to our hotel at 2:30 in the morning, booked for another flight today that was canceled. So I hired a cab to drive us back to New York. We are right now in Pennsylvania, four hours out.

“My wife is Type I diabetic, so she had insulin for one day. So I had to get her back. And these airlines, zero honesty, zero transparency. And what’s going on is a travesty. I’m just telling you, I’ve spoken to other people at other airports, it’s a disaster right now.”

As noted up top, the idea of people taking taxis or Uber rides between cities when flights don’t work out has come up before. But some of those have been fake reports, as was the case with the “Richard G. West” report on Colgate’s Jordan Burns missing a flight and taking an Uber from New York to Columbus, Ohio during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 2019. The Schefter situation stands out for the flight replacement actually happening. And it’s remarkable that it didn’t even interfere with his TV hit with McAfee.

[The Pat McAfee Show on X/Twitter]