I was on US flight 1276 from CUN to PHL on Friday evening 3/16. We were holding at PHL around 4:30 when the captain informed us that PHL had been closed. We diverted to BWI and landed w/o incident.
Around 5PM, we were on the ground and we were told to wait patiently while they figured out what the plan was for us. The captain did a good job coming on the intercom every 10 - 15 minutes to at least tell us that he had nothing new to tell us. Savvy passengers (no doubt flyertalk readers all) were already holding on their cell phones arranging hotels, cars, or flights, as available. According to them, the reservations agents said the "system" showed us scheduled to depart BWI at 7.
Our problem was being an unscheduled international flight. The captain blamed customs and the US government and then that there were no international gates available. All of which sounded like reasonable explanations.
After two hours of sitting on the landed plane, a "people mover" (a bus that can elevate itself to the height of the aircraft loading door) arrived to transport us to customs, 100 passengers at a time. I was the 10th person on the bus at around 7PM.
We drove straight over to a customs entrance where our "bus agent" hopped off expecting to open the door and release us. Sadly, the US agent they had expected to be there was not. Though not a US employee herself, she worked diligently to find out what happened to our host. This continued for over an hour.
At about 8PM we were getting restless. Folks at the back of the bus could not hear any of the radio conversations that I could. The long and the short of it was that customs would not allow the bus to unload without a US rep to escort/answer questions/etc. and this individual went missing.
At this point a woman who had been begging to disembark to use the restroom for an hour could not hold her bladder any longer. Her husband/boyfriend held up a blanket for her to squat behind as she relieved herself on the platform that connects the "people mover" to the customs gate. I saw it. It happened. We all stepped through the puddle when we were finally allowed to leave.
There were some angry and vocal leaders amassing at the front by now and at a little after 8:30PM the doors opened and we were let in. We did not see anyone from US, but our "people mover" agent was giving what could be described as an "ear stain" to someone on the other end of her walkie-talkie. I'm not sure if she was allowed to let us off, but she was our advocate and I think she wanted to do the right thing.
At the immigration line, I was standing next to a couple with a young child. They had run out of diapers and were both soaked in urine.
Once we cleared immigration we proceeded to the customs baggage claim where we would receive our checked luggage and clear customs. We finally found the US agent dispatched to meet us. He was uninformed and unable to do anything other than apologize. He told passengers that if they were unable to make flight arrangements with their cell phones, they would have to leave customs and go upstairs to speak with an agent.
Unfortunately customs would not let anyone leave until they got their luggage. One passenger became so enraged that the customs agent signaled another agent to come over. The second agent put his had on his sidearm and diffused the situation.
It took three hours to unload the luggage. Mine and other "priority bags" were among the last to come down. The story there is that US did not have the proper equipment at BWI to unload a 767. Once they borrowed it from another airline (this sounded suspicious to me too), they only had two customs certified baggage handlers to unload the bags for 200 passengers; hence the massive delay.
The agent admitted that it was a bonehead decision to divert an international flight to BWI instead of IAD. DCA had closed at the diversion time, but IAD was open and capable of disembarking a 767. US presence at BWI is cursory at best.
I have been diverted to BWI for refueling while circling PHL in the past, as recently as January - but never disembarked there. I wonder if the crew just made the decision to park it Friday night. A better decision would have been landing at an appropriate airport.
My story ended OK as I had secured a rental car several hours ago and was less than a 3 hour drive from home. I feel terrible for those who were released from customs at almost midnight to get in line behind all those folks who had been working on new flights for hours ahead of them.
Sadly the plane was full of many spring breakers and ill-traveled vacationing families, all of which were unequipped to handle such a situation.
I'm sure that anyone waiting at BWI for US to complete their itinerary is likely still there. (US has a paltry service at BWI - thank you SW.) The best offer they gave me was for me to "get myself" to DCA, IAD, or PHL and I'd have a chance of getting home on Sunday.
This story included 7 hours of waiting without hardly any information, and way more urine than I imagine US would like to have talked about in a forum.
I have spent almost 4 hours holding for 3 phone calls to US. All have ended in disconnections. I have yet to get any credit/voucher. I hope I get something for the troubles. I understand weather delays, but they blew it on everything that they _could_ control.
An extrordinary and true experience from Friday
