Thanks for your concern, but as Flying Buccaneer states, those of us that fly quite often are a little more savy about how airports operate. In addition, I design and develop airports (including layout and operation of runways and taxiways) for a living with a consulting firm and know quite a bit about how airports operate. I viewed from my window most aircraft behind us turning around and heading back to their gates. As FB states, the pilot indicated to us that the only reason we were sitting there was due to the lack of gates for B6. As for where the empty planes could have been moved, there are parking positions around the ramp area of the B6 terminal that could have been used to park a plane to pull another one in to offload. I saw B6 aircraft all night out of my window taxiing away from the terminal area. I would imagine these were being sent to remote parking positions or their maintenance areas.

And I do believe we were lied to by B6 because the airline had to know ahead of time that they were going to cancel our flight before we got back to the gate. Instead of informing us ahead of time, they chose to wait till we got to the gate after 9 hours to tell us. If the airline did not know ahead of time how their planes were scheduled for the next day to begin to get back to operation, then that is a sorry excuse for an airline.

The respondents on this board will go back and forth on who was really at fault with no agreement. For those of us on the planes, that experienced this, there will never be anything that will convince us that B6 did everything they could. This was a horrible, frustrating experience that I would wish on no one to experience. I imagine that B6 will suffer from this and likely have lost a large number of passengers for the way it was all handled.

But, anyone flying out on Sunday had the full option of rebooking (Since Friday) until I think Feb. 24th.

I am not saying JetBlue isnt partly at fault, but you (and anyone who did choose to try and fly) took the gamble knowing fully well that operations were definately not going to be 100% normal.

Contrary to what you may think, I am not a novice to airport operations, just to let you know. As to the terminal ops, Terminal 6 is not a big terminal. I don't think B6 had the ability to shuffle planes within the terminal ramp, with the snow accumulations and the ramp maintenance that is being conducted by the PA in front of their terminal. I know that Jetblue is sometimes able to park planes in front of terminal 5, but I am not sure if that still happens with the construction to 5 now. I am not familiar with the layout of JFK in comparison to the maintenance hangars, but with the Turkish plane off the runway and the congestion the taxiways, I don't think JFK ground would be too willing to move planes to different positions on the ground. Also, apparently there was a medical emergency that also was unable to get to the terminal for Jetblue, so they had to bring the authorities out to the plane. Obviously, if they couldn't get a priority plane back to the terminal, then I'm sure that it would be much more difficult to get your plane back to the terminal.

Again, I have a hard time believing that Jetblue would intentionally lie to you. Their motto is based around getting a fligt to a destination 6 hours late rather then cancelling a flight. They may have believed that they could have gotten to Tampa and back and still be ontime with their next day operations. In the end, it probably won't hurt Jetblue too much. People have a tendency to forgive and forget these kind of things (I am not implying that you will and I believe your promise.). On at least one occasion on United, I have sat at ORD for at least 5 hours(Granted I got to my destination and it wasn't as bad as your dilemma). However, I still will fly them because I realize that there are just some things that are just out of their control.

having been once stuck on an airplane for 6 hours grounded, but never having flown JetBlue, there is no excuse EVER for an airline to keep you on a grounded plane. If no gate is open, then get a stairway, a bus and take the passengers off the plane.

I know there could be a baggage issue, but there just is no excuse to keep passengers on a plane. It's called kidnapping.

one can argue about how much they should have told you, but there was no reason to keep you on the plane

Well, at least there's no shortage of hyperbole on FT...

JetBlue has unfortunately finally caught up with the majors in respect to customer service, their lack of planning and ability to manage growth is self evident. I would not be surprised to see some management changes because of this latest fiasco.

Has any compensation been received? Full refund seems to be in order or at least a free TB Ticket.

Check my link to the airliners.net thread - there are audio files and transcripts in there...

It was a mess, at one point an American and Virgin flight started actually fighting over the ATC channel (because the Virgin flight was hogging the runway while waiting for an ice check).

And I do feel for those of you trapped in your planes... a few years ago, I was stuck on the ground, in the plane (door closed) for 7 hours in LHR while US intelligence services poured over the names of everyone on the plane

Should I be pissed at BA for that? I mean - they should have known not to fly the flight if they were going to put the passengers through such hell, right?

Nah- the crew on that plane went through the same hell I did, and it wasn't thier fault- just like last weekend wasn't B6's fault. If you feel compelled to be angry, you have every right too - don't get me wrong... but the only person your robbing by refusing to consider B6 in the future over this incident is your own access to a company that (usually) provides the best US domestic product for a very good price...

You're absolutely free to do so of course... if it makes you feel better to have a target for your anger...

But it strikes me as being somewhat unproductive.

A question for the OP...
 

Why did you book this trip on B6?

You're a UA 1K and an AA PLT. Why did you book away from your "status" airlines?

Fair question.

UA/US don't fly non-stop TPA-NYC. Fares on AA were around $140, and B6 was about $98 all-in per person. This was a long-planned weekend trip to NYC, with non-refundable hotel and non-cancellable plans on Saturday night (for those who keep asking why we didn't rebook to fly home on Friday or Saturday).

I doubt poor upper level managment was to blame. David Neeleman is a smart man and knows how to run an airline, if anything the weather really did catch them off guard and perhaps they were a bit high off thier last trumph with those hand writtern boarding passed and etc... I was not there and will not make any judgement call, nor am i defending the actions taken by JetBlue. I'm a Continental FF myself, but as for blaming management - from Neeleman's track record - it doesnt seem to make sense.

-Vincent

I'd say that BA should have offered to let the pax off the plane, if at all possible, if they knew that it would be a long delay. On the other hand, if it was a 15-minute-at-a-time extension of the delay, or if the US intelligence guys wouldn't let anyone deplane without starting their "analysis" all over again, then there might well have been nothing the BA could have done.

In any case, from my personal experience, being stuck on a long-haul equipped widebody is a lot different than being stuck on a smaller plane that was intended for a relatively short domestic flight, so I'd cut BA a bit more of a break, anyways.

Depends whether BA contributed to the problem in the first place. If they knew that the hadn't sent the necessary info to the US officials in time (which is what I'm assuming happened), they should have resolved that issue before they started boarding. Even if it wasn't BA's fault that the information wasn't received, they should have been able to get some sort of answer from US Immigration as to when they would be cleared to go and they should have delayed the boarding as necessary. On the other hand, if it was just the US officials being pains in the ... and not giving BA any idea when they'd be able to leave (which is certainly a real possibility), then all the flame e-mails should go to US Immigration rather than BA.

As with the Jet Blue situation, I don't think there's enough information to make a reasonable judgement as to exactly who was at fault. However, I'd expect at least an decent explanation from the airline (maybe EridanMan got it in his case) and an apology from the airline, if they contributed to the ground delays or failed to take reasonable action to improve the situation.

After the seven-hour delay, did BA fly you to your destination?

After our eight-plus-hour delay, during which we were told that all we needed to do was refuel and get a new pilot before we flew to TPA, we were dumped into terminal 6 with hundreds of others who were trying to get rebooked. Did BA do that to you?

There is no way that they could do this. Logistically, this is a total mess. Could you imagine other airlines dumpling people onto the tarmac. There would be hundreds to thousands of people in a blizzard, on a major international airport, walking and waiting for a bus. This is a large security risk to the airport. Finally, could you imagine if multiple people fell on the ice. People would be suing the airlines, the airport, the PANYNJ, the people who created the salt, the people who laid the concrete, and so on. It would be an absolute maylay. They had to keep them on the plane, considering that there were no gates open. This couldn't have even been an option.

in the first place, it isn't exactly unusual to have people bused to or off a plane. In fact it happens pretty often to foreign flights where people have to go to customs.

In the second, you're taking it as if it's an incredibly long walk. You could pull the planes up near a jetway and if no jetway is available walk. And a walk to a bus is usually no more than 10 feet.

But the whole idea is wrong here. If an airline--and for the record my experience was with United and it was like 7 years ago--has to hold you long enough where they've shown you two movies and you're still on the ground and unlikely to take off, then their responsibility becomes to get you off the plane.

I wasn't kidding about the kidnapping either. At some point it passes from an inconvenience to their holding you hostage, literally and figuratively. The stories about the Northwest flight referenced above had passengers charging they were being held without food and drink in planes without air for hours and hours.