I was driving on I-87 yesterday near the airport and noticed what seemed to be a much larger plane than usual landing, so when I got home I looked up the flights using flightaware.com and noticed it was a Boeing 767 from Nice, France that had been diverted from Newark due to the weather. Some domestic flights bound for Boston were also diverted here but were more typical for Albany (Boeing 737s and Airbus A321s).
Since the TU paywalls everything, the text is below:
COLONIE - Thunderstorms along the East Coast resulted in at least five flights including one from Nice, France to be diverted to Albany International Airport on Tuesday.
The United Airlines flight from France was heading toward Newark and was on the ground for about two hours. It departed for Newark by 6 p.m.
Albany is a diversionary airport for flights unable to land at Newark, LaGuardia, JFK, Boston and Philadelphia airports when there are storms or other disruptions there. As of 6:30 p,m. Tuesday, four flights to Newark and one heading to Boston had been diverted.
The fights began arriving in Albany at 3:35 p.m. Tuesday.
The diversions take on additional fuel at Albany and then await Federal Aviation Administration clearance to head toward their original destinations.
According to an FAA bulletin the storms caused many arriving flights going to Newark to face delays.
This has been a difficult summer for air travel, with pilot shortages, an uptick in flying after the pandemic and several bad storms causing delays at major airports.
The most practical answer is because he’s watched by the Secret Service 24/7, which isn’t the case with a lot of people.