ABC 7 New York reports that at least four Jetblue planes were stuck on the runway fully loaded with passengers and children for hours. JetBlue said the passengers were held on the flight because “we were operating as if the aircraft would be able to fly.” The airline says it was relying on forecast models that indicated there would be a departure window.
The plane that reported the story to ABC was Jetblue Flight 751 to Cancun, scheduled to depart this morning at 8:15AM. The plane attempted to get off the ground during a narrow takeoff window and it sat on the tarmac for hours, as there were no gates to return it to. Airport officials said that if Jetblue told them they had passengers needing rescuing on planes out on the tarmac, they would have come with buses. But Jetblue did not call until after 3PM. The passengers were not offloaded until after 5PM.
The Cancun passengers were not alone. A Burbank-bound flight, 351, scheduled to depart at 6:45AMÂ was sitting on the tarmac all day. And an inbound flight from Ft. Myers, Flight 850, apparently landed at 9:44AM waited all day to deplane.
We are please to say that even Jetblue admitted their actions were inexcusable…a JetBlue spokesperson said, “We did not do our best … no excuse for why we allowed those passengers to sit on the tarmac.” Jenny Dervin, a spokewoman for the airline, commented, “the driver of this situation is the weather. The weather just did not play out as forecasted. But we know it does not relieve our responsibilities for our customers’ comfort…We would never intentionally do that[leave a plane on the tarmac for hours]. We would only position an aircraft if we thought we could depart that aircraft within a reasonable amount of time.”
Like on the American Airlines incident in Austin in December, where passengers were left on diverted American flights for hours, this may cause the federal government to reconsider the “Passenger Bills of Rights” the airlines convinced them to not deliberate on in 1999 with promises of reform.