A major wind stom in Las Vegas kept planes from landing on Tuesday. American’s Chicago to Las Vegas flight 2254 made an unusal diversion – to Bullhead City, Arizona, an airport that lacks commercial service.
Las Vegas airport
With crew timing out, the flight cancelled. Checked bags were offloaded from the Airbus A321 and passengers could either wait for airline-provided buses to bring them to Las Vegas – or they could proceed on their own.
The wind storm is causing planes at Harry Reid Airport to abort their landings. pic.twitter.com/Z1cGziAv64
— Las Vegas Locally (@LasVegasLocally) July 1, 2025
Very odd diversion for AA Flight #2254 (ORD-LAS).
AA doesn’t operate at Bullhead City (IFP) and have no ground staff. IFP to LAS canceled. Crew timed out. What happened to the passengers? Dropped off in the middle of the desert? @xJonNYC @flightradar24 @garyleff pic.twitter.com/yX45Q5JBET
— June, June, Hannah. (@T0wanda) July 2, 2025
It was a disaster. We were eventually given our luggage once AA authorized Bullhead airport staff to unload. Told shuttle busses were coming from LV to pick us up but time unknown. Many of us pooled together and paid $100-$180/PP to get uber drivers to take us to LAS.
— Nick (@N1tchelous) July 2, 2025
Bullhead City, Arizona is 100 miles from Las Vegas, across the Colorado River from Laughlin, Nevada. But truthfully there aren’t going to be a lot of better options even flying a bit farther.
Credit: Laughlin/Bullhead Airport
Prescott Regional airport is going to be the closest to Laughlin offering commercial service, about 127 miles away and with United Express flights. The closest airport with American Eagle flights is going to be St. George, Utah, I think – perhaps 50 miles closer than Phoenix or Ontario.
American Airlines Airbus A321
The priority in a diversion is safety, considering available fuel resources and weather forecast. It’s always easier to land at an airport where the airline has service. When your own people are on the ground it’s going to be easier to assist passengers and coordinate with airport services. Under the circumstances though it doesn’t look reasonable to second guess the decision.
American Airlines Airbus A321
When a plane needs to get on the ground for fuel, outside the area where weather makes landing too much of a challenge, you’re going to have to pick from a limited range of options in this area. It’s unfortunate that crew were going to time out (the FAA and contractual agreements set maximum duty times which are considered safe). Here it seems the airline did the best it could for passengers – and they were in a place where they could organize things for themselves!
Frankly, there are many worse places to get stuck than Laughlin, Nevada.
@Jack the Ladd — Nope. You win!
Had the same problem back on May 18th this year. DFW to PSP.
The pilot wasn’t skilled enough to land in Palm Springs so he flew on to Ontario
and dumped everyone off close to midnight. No ground services at all. Got a Lift ride
to the desert for $200 but tight wad AA only reimbursed 1/2.
Where is Gary? Can’t you get rid of your repeat offenders here? You really support a forum of hate speech? Your comments have devolved away from your post so it’s time to remove the instigators.
I think a lot of people have actually heard of far worse “diversions” than this one, which seems pretty benign or at least expected with the weather, but oh we forget your anti-DEI crowd seem to think they can control the weather? Or should be able to in order to land the plane because they got all the answers given to them in flight school? Who the hell knows, I can’t follow that kind of “logic.”
That plane must’ve brought very minimal reserve fuel AND had circled on hold for some time to not be able to divert to somewhere better equipped for an A321
Why all of the long faces? Laughlin is cheaper! Free water taxi from the Bullhead side to Laughlin. Wait for a Vegas bus enjoying the casinos.