Originally Posted by
caj11
You know, living in the NYC area I agree the snowstorm was pretty bad and a lot was out of the airlines' hands but it was nothing compared to the once in a generation snowstorm in early 1999 where all those Northwest planes were stuck out on the tarmac anywhere from 2 to 11 hours. Unlike in 1999, most of the airport and airline employees made it to work. The skies did clear up later in the day and the snow stopped. Couldn't Jetblue and whatever other airline was in this situation yesterday have learned from Northwest's mistakes? I do, however, commend Jetblue for doing its best on damage control and there will probably not be a lawsuit like there was with Northwest (which Northwest settled out of court for $7 million).
Even though most of the employees made it to work, they were helpless in the situation. They were probably either A) Spectators to the problems on the grounds B) receiving grief from the customers. Either way, it was out of their control.
Yes, the snow did give way at about 3 P.M., but the roads were still a mess. They were reporting in the paper today that roads like Route 80 (a major highway that leads right to the GWB) wasn't plowed until 2:30 to 3:00. I can only imagine how much of a mess JFK must have been. The crews at JFK were most likely doing their best to keep clear, maybe, 1 or 2 runways, the taxiways, and the gate areas. Not to mention their was deicing going on constantly, and the entire ground was probably in gridlock. The last thing that JFK needed was a bunch of empty planes being tugged around the airport to clear room for more planes, in the midst of this ongoing confusion. Jetblue did their best to slow down the arrival rates of their flights, as the put a groundstop into effect via FAA, but it was too late for the planes who were already making their way into JFK. Ultimately, there were too many planes with not enough places to put them. It was unfortunate experience that ended with a generous compensation to each customer.