Upwards of 70 JetBlue flights out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York were canceled or delayed Monday, leaving hundreds of customers stranded and furious, according to reports.
“@JetBlue appears to be having a meltdown at @JFKairport,” tweeted Jason Rabinowitz, who cohosts FlightRadar24’s Av Talk podcast.
“There are nearly 20 inbound flights scattered around the taxiways unable to reach a gate, some of them for several hours. At least half a dozen flights are also now diverting to Newark,” he added.
He noted one flight was approaching JFK when JetBlue requested the flight divert to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
The New York Post reported hundred of passengers were stranded on tarmacs for hours.
One passenger, Annie Stoll, voiced her frustration on Twitter, claiming she was supposed to board a Buffalo-bound plane around 8:00 p.m. Sunday before the flight was delayed through the night. She claimed passengers boarded the plane after 2:00 a.m. and sat on the tarmac for over an hour before they were told to deboard because there was no flight plan and the airline forgot passenger’s luggage. On Monday morning, just after 6:00 a.m., she tweeted that JetBlue emailed her stating her flight was canceled and provided no other information. “This is beyond AWFUL,” she said.
“I’m convinced @JetBlue kept everyone hostage in jfk long enough that now they don’t have to pay for people to have a hotel,” she tweeted. “There are families w babies and we met a kid who was traveling alone like wtf!! :/ it’s so disorganized and we can’t leave who knows where our luggage is!”
Another person tweeted:
After a 2 hour delay, we’ve been stuck on the tarmac at JFK for 2.5 hours and have been told there’s no timeline on when we can get off. So far, many screaming children and one passenger had a panic attack. Gonna need more than just a full refund this time @JetBlue
According to Spectrum News NY1, JetBlue released the following statement:
At JFK, we started operations on Saturday as planned but faced a number of conditions that have slowed the operation down. We have combined some flights today to ease those constraints and are working to rebook customers. It normally takes a few days to fully recover when a storm of this size significantly impacts our two largest markets of New York and Boston, and our first priority continues to be restarting safely. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and we working to get them on their way as quickly as possible.
Rabinowitz claimed JetBlue “has always had difficulties recovering from significant weather events.”
Rabinowitz noted that JFK International did a great job with snow removal and said a source told him the airline assured the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey it was ready. “JetBlue’s JFK meltdown was its own doing,” he asserted.
The port authority said the delays mainly stem from JetBlue staffing issues, according to Spectrum News NY1. Upwards of 70 flights were either canceled or delayed, the outlet reports, citing Flight Aware.
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