zsurf

Seems like Jetblue manages to get itself into these PR disasters often enough

mapleg

Unbelievable that they would keep pax on plane that long.

Look, I get it. I have flown many times when disrupted by storms, ice, fog--you name it, but darn it all, once you get to the airport you should be off that plane ASAP.

I have never flown Jetblue, and after reading about his, I never will. Their PR guy has the nerve to say this:

.. We did not deplane those aircraft in our targeted time allotted," Maruster said. and..."At no point in this weekend was safety ever compromised in any of our decision-making, whether it was our customers or our crew members and in fact, safety was their number one concern," and "Obviously, we would have preferred deplaning much sooner than we did" (source http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...rtford-airport).

Loren Pechtel

So long as *ANYONE* could have changed the situation I'm in favor of not holding back on the fines.

If it was a problem with the terminal a few incidents of airlines getting fined will make the airlines demand the airport make suitable arrangements to avoid a recurrence.

The one change I would like is the fines should be time based rather than a sharp cutoff at 3 hours.

WillCAD

The airlines may demand anything they want, but what incentive do the airport authorities have to comply if they don't get fined for situations that are partly their fault?

I'm in favor of the 3 hour rule and the fines, but I believe that the fines should be applied to those who actually cause the delays, whether it be the airlines, the airports, the FAA, the TSA, CBP - anyone who stands in the way of a planeload of pax being deplaned to avoid keeping them on board the plane on tarmac for more than 3 hours.

If the airline makes a good faith effort to get the pax offloaded, and the airport or CBP prevents it by failing to provide necessary equipment or personnel, the fine should be leveled at the airport of CBP.

Analise

How do you know that Jetblue corporate didn't respond? Why wouldn't they?

Learn what? The FAA diverted them.

A huge fine should be paid by them.

I agree.

PresRDC

What about passenger responsibility? Why did any of these people board a plane to a location that was known to be experiencing a severe winter storm?

I would have stayed in FL.

wrp96

The audio from the pilot asking the tower to send help because he couldn't get anybody at his company to respond.

telloh

The FAA doesn't divert planes. It's up to the captain and dispatcher together to decide where to land.

Analise

What? They were diverted to BDL because of problems at EWR. The pilots were diverted by air traffic control who is under the FAA.

The Flyers Rights organization is looking at Bradley to take responsibility for being so ill-prepared and criticizes them for not having contingency plans. Read their statement: http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com/

That Congress' law doesn't mandate AIRPORTS to pay when they leave passengers stuck on the tarmac for over 3 hours is asinine. Why are they protecting airports?

telloh

No, neither the FAA nor ATC diverts aircraft. If the need to divert arises, the captain and dispatcher agree on which diversion airport is best and then the captain tells ATC where the plane is going.

Palal

A single plane (A320) takes about 10 mins to deplane. You need a single wide bus to bus everyone (or two regular buses). You could probably do 4/hr, so it would still take 5 hours to do 20 planes.

The argument that it's unsafe to use airstairs is b.s. It's done all over the world every day in all types of weather conditions imaginable... even in the US.

WillCAD

Funny, I was always under the impression that ATC stood for Air Traffic Control, as in, they control which planes go where and who can land at which airport.

Can ATC not deny a plane permission to land when the airport has no ability to receive it (except in cases of an in-flight emergency, of course)?

Did ATC at BDL not know that the airport couldn't handle any more aircraft on the ground due to personnel and equipment shortages and power failures and snow-blocked gates?

I think there is enough blame to go around in this situation; nobody should be completely immune except the pax, who made their decision to board the aircraft based on what they were told - the flight is going to take off. Somehow I doubt that the pax were informed at their origin airports that their flights might be diverted en route to an airport that could not receive them and would strand them on the tarmac for 7-10 hours.

cordelli

Funny responses.

These planes were not diverted because it was snowing.

They were diverted because the FAA lost their ground radar at both Newark and at JFK. That's a bit hard to plan for by the airline.

From what some people here are posting, the pilot could have just told the controllers to go screw themselves, they were landing at JFK or Newark no matter what because they read on flyertalk it was their decision where to go and where to land, not the FAA. Not a single plane that landed at Bradley expected to do more than get some fuel and maybe deiced and take off for the quick trip down to New York in a few minutes.

People can blame the airline all they want, but if the FAA sends them someplace they don't want to go, and the airport won't give them a gate because they were all full or a bus to get the people off what are they supposed to do, taxi to a gate and push the plane that's there out of the way?

Had the FAA had an operational system, each of these planes would have landed without incident, instead dozens and dozens of planes were diverted all over the northeast.

Pingtung

ATC's job is to get planes on the ground safely. If a plane is requesting to land at an airport and the airport is open, ATC will get them down. It's up to the airlines to figure out where to land and whether they have a gate, etc.

I'm guessing ATC around New York told them that the airports are closed for the time being so JetBlue dispatch decided to divert the planes to BDL, never expecting the delay to last that long.

LarryJ

It takes longer than 10 minutes to deplane an airplane of that size even when it's hooked up to a properly operating jetbridge. Have you never sat at the back on an airliner? Start timing from the time the wheels stop until the last passenger is in the jetbridge. I've waiting more than ten minutes on a number of occasions just for the forward door to be opened.

In this case you'd have to plow a path the to airplane as the stairs truck doesn't have much ground clearance. Bring the stairs truck in and bring in the buses. It's going to take two to three buses per airplane. When that airplane's done you have to plow the path to the next airplane and repeat the process. It's going to take a lot more than ten minutes in those conditions.

Even if we take your five hour estimate, the original plan was to refuel and return to EWR. The weather when they landed would have allowed them to depart and the airport still had power. The storm then worsened, and the power was lost, so the plan changed to cancelling the flight and getting the passenger deplaned. Now the jetbridges aren't working, the computers, and phones are out, and the visibility has dropped and ramps/taxiways are covered with 26 airplanes needing to be deplaned. That's when your unrealistic five-hour clock starts.

It's up to the pilots to tell ATC when they are not able, or not authorized, to land under the current conditions. ATC may offer alternatives, or be unable to approve some requests, but it's then up to the pilots to decide on the alternate airport. In this case, the pilot's choices were limited by the amount of fuel remaining as the failures of the EWR ILS approach ground equipment, and New York radar, was not anticipated. When BDL lost power, additional aircraft that were headed for BDL had to divert to BOS under emergency fuel declarations.