Don’t worry, the Flames made it to Los Angeles despite the FAA shutdown

On Friday afternoon, the United States’ Federal Aviation Administration, the government agency that regulates nation-wide air travel, issued a fairly unprecedented ground stop across all American airports.

The order, made citing “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” prevented any flights that were on the ground from taking off across the United States. Flights that were already in the air and headed to American airports were allowed to continue to their destinations.

One of those flights contained the Calgary Flames, who were headed to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) from Calgary International Airport (YYC) for a game on Saturday night at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena against the Los Angeles Kings.

The Flames practised on Friday morning at the Scotiabank Saddledome following a scheduled day off on Thursday. The biggest news at practice, via QR Calgary’s Pat Steinberg, was a slight shuffle in the team’s bottom six forward lines, and that injured forward Jonathan Huberdeau won’t be travelling with the team, despite nearing a return to the lineup.

Following practice, the Flames all headed to the airport, where they boarded their charter flight and departed in the early afternoon (Calgary time). By the time the FAA made their ground stop declaration, the Flames were in the air and halfway to LAX. By all accounts, the Flames’ plane landed as scheduled.

The Flames (8-10-1) are in California for a three game road trip, during which they’ll face the Kings on Saturday night, the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night and the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night. They usually take a charter bus between their hotels in Los Angeles and Anaheim, so they won’t need to return to an airport until after Sunday’s game for their trek up to northern California.

By then, hopefully all the FAA issues are cleared up and everyone is able to enjoy air travel without any additional hiccups.