On Friday, November 13, U.S. airports were engulfed with chaos after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all flights grounded due to what was said to be a “telecommunications outage” that left passengers stranded.
The passengers aboard a Southwest flight departing from LAX in Los Angeles, en route to Orlando, Florida, received an unexpected show when a few of their fellow travelers put on a mini-concert within the airliner.
Here Comes Hoobastank
As it happened, that flight contained some music veterans: the members of three different rock bands on their way to perform at a Vans Warped Tour music festival in Orlando — Hoobastank, A Simple Plan and The Used.
Stuck aboard the jet while it sat grounded on the tarmac, the members of those bands decided to make the best of the situation by entertaining their fellow passengers.
As documented by passengers via social media, Hoobastank whipped out their instruments for an impromptu performance of 2004 hit “The Reason,” while delighted passengers sang along.
“When @hoobastank starts preforming The Reason mid flight 😅 #liveat35,” Molly Hammons captioned an Instagram Reel of herself watching the band perform on the plane. “What just happened on my flight??” she wrote in a caption overlaying video, which the band subsequently reposted on their own Instagram Stories.
A Simple Plan & The Used
A Simple Plan then got into the action, with the band regaling passengers with performances of their hits “I’m Just a Kid” and “Perfect.”
The Used, also slated to perform on the Vans Warped Tour, also joined the fun with a performance of their hit “The Taste of Ink.”
Vans Warped Tour 2026
The FAA lifted the nationwide ground stop order on Friday evening after planes had been grounded for approximately four hours.
As a result, all three bands are expected to take to the stage during this weekend’s Warped Orlando festival, taking place in on Saturday, November 14 and Sunday, November 15.
Hoobastank and A Simple Plan are on the bill for Saturday, with The Used slated to perform on Sunday.
Interestingly, 2026 marked the first time that Hoobastank ever performed on the Vans Warped Tour.
In an interview earlier this year with KROQ, the band confirmed they were making their Warped debut this year.
“It seems weird,” admitted Hoobastank frontman Doug Robb.
“A lot of people have been coming up to us going, ‘There’s no way! I thought I saw you at [a particular] year.’ And be be honest with you, it kind of feels like we had. But the story is that, you know, in the early 2000s, right before our first album came out, this was, like, such a perfect fit for us, kind of our whole vibe. And it was on our radar and in our plans to do.”
However, circumstances intervened. “And then we dropped our first single and it got really big, and it was still like, ‘OK, let’s do Warp Tour,’ but that point, I feel like management and the record label stepped in and go, ‘You don’t want to tour with Vans, we’re gonna put you on a bus and do this right away.’ And so we’re like, ‘OK, next year!'” Robb added, explaining that pattern continued to repeat year after year.
“Better late than never!” he added.
Three Beloved Rock Bands Entertain Stranded Passengers on Southwest Flight Amid FAA Shutdown