New York Local News

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Hundreds of JetBlue passengers experienced nightmarish delays at JFK Airport in Queens on Wednesday, and many were stuck on planes without food or water for up to 10 hours. One passenger described her day as "hell on a trip to nowhere." Here are other horror stories of Wednesday's mess at JFK submitted by other passengers.

E-mail us your JetBlue or JFK horror stories.

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We were schuduled to fly JetBlue flight 181 from JFK to San Diego at 8:55 am yesterday. We arrived at the airport at 7AM with our three children (10, 8, 5). We returned home at 4 AM today with our trip canceled. (We were offered a flight out on Monday so we opted for a refurnd.) Today we heard the Jet Blue CEO David Neelman's interview on CBS 880 on the website. He said, "We've going to five a free roundtrip ticket with a huge apology from us and hopefully they'll come and try us again." But when we called Jet Blue twice today (waiting on hold for 30 minutes for a supervisor each time) we were told they needed to "sort it out" and that we would hear one way or another regarding a free roundtrip in about a week.

Our first flight was delayed due to weather however, it was eventually canceled around 2PM even though the weather had cleared. We retrieved our luggage from baggage claim and went across the street to check in again on a 1 hour line.

We were able to re-book all 5 of us onto a Jet Blue flight leaving JFK at 8:25 p.m. to Sacramento. We would then fly to Long Beach, CA and rent a car to San Diego. That flight was rescheduled every hour until they canceled the flight some time after 11:35 p.m.

There was NO Jet Blue representative at the gate to answer questions. Eventually the Pilot came out and told us that he was here but he had no crew. He said they were trying to get in touch with the crew but they were unable to contact anyone. This went on all night.

After waiting on line for about 1 hour in order to reschedule, we were told we could not get onto any flights to California until Monday. Since we were returning to NY on Wednesday we did not want to go to California for 2 days and therefore, canceled the entire trip. At which time our daughter began to cry hysterically.

We were unable to go standby because the policy is only to stand by on the first available flight. By the time our flight was canceled there were already 15 people on the stand by list. This was true for all flights to California.

To top it all off, when we went to baggage claim to retrieve our luggage at about 12:30 AM, it had not arrived there yet. Once again, there was NO communication from Jet Blue. They announced only the flights for which the luggage would be on the carousels. All other flights were not mentioned. There was no Jet Blue representative to answer any questions. There was however police officers stationed outside of the Luggage Bag office so that no customers could talk to the representative. When we did try ask questions or complain that we were waiting for a long time the Jet Blue Representative claimed "There are other people that have been waiting longer than you!" When I was able to get a Jet Blue representative on the floor to help me he said he had no idea what the hold up was.

Finally, our luggage arrived after 3:00 a.m. This was about 3 1/2 hours AFTER our flight was canceled. We had now spent 20 hours in the airport. My children were spent! They were exhausted and hugely disappointed.We do not take a lot of vacations and therefore we (especially our children) were really looking forward to this trip.

From what we have heard on the news today, this problem was mainly confined to Jet Blue at JFK. Their slogan is "Jet Blue is not the only airline, but it should be." But yesterday Jet Blue was not the only airline, just the only airline not flying.

--Jonathan & Marci Scherl

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I was a passenger on 129, JFK-MSY. Arrived at 5:30. boarded at 6:40. First Officer (FO) told us, at 7:00 am we were heading to the de-icing pad and then we would be the first in line for takeoff. We left the gate, got near the de-icing area, and sat there for 5 hours. We were finally told, approx 11:00 am, the flight wouldn't be cancelled, but the aircraft was returning to the terminal as soon as a gate was open. When the gate was available the announcement was made that the flight was now cancelled.. Were also told the gate agent would assist us when we returned to the terminal. Not exactly! Her solution was to call the 800 number, which I had tried to do from the plane. The recording said they were experiencing heavy call volume and just hung up. Finally was able to locate luggage and hauled it to the other building to get in line for a counter agent. Was on line for an hour, reached the agent, only to be told all seats were booked thru Sat. I needed to be there Thurs night, but obviously it was not in the cards.

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My friend and I were scheduled to leave at 8:45am on Feb. 14th for San Juan Puerto Rico. We called the airlines starting on Sunday to ask if we could get on an earlier flight due to the impending snow storm. Only if we wanted to pay the difference from when we purchased our ticket to the current ticket price was this possible.

On Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 13, 2007, we took a car service from New City, Rockland County to a hotel near JFK airport. We stayed overnight at the Comfort Inn. We called several times that evening to see if our flight was on any delay. We got up at 5am on the morning of Feb. 14, 2007 to call Jet Blue. Our flight was "On schedule." We took a shuttle bus to the airport at 5:45am. Our bags were checked in by 6:15am. We proceeded to the gate to wait for our flight.

We were told that the eatlier flight leaving at 6:30am had taken off and we were still scheduled to be "On time. We were told that at time of check in to be at the gate by 8am for boarding. At approximately 8:15am we were told that we were ready to board but could not because we were waiting for a cabin attendant to arrive. She was currently on another flight coming into JFK and a few minutes later we were told that she had arrived and was on her way to our gate. We bagan to board the plane and once everyone was onboard, we were actually pushed away from the gate. We sat on the plane for quite sometime and were told that we that we were waiting for clearance. Eventually they decided to offer us drinks and snacks to eat. After 2 hours we were told that we were going back to the gate because at that time the airport was closed down. We sat on the plane for more time and eventually we were told that if you wanted to get off the plane to get something to eat (this was at least 3 hours later) we could. If not, we should stay seated on the plane and wait for further notice. Eventually, we were told that the airport was closed and we should get off the plane. We were also told not to leave the area so we could hear updates regarding our flight.

The Jet Blue staff told us to stand in line so that if another plan was put on we should give our name so that we could get on another flight. The lady that told us this left the area and when the men came they told us an hour later that we don't need to be in a line. There is no such list and they would not be taking our names. We were also informed that they do not have anything to do with any other airline and therefore could not help us find other transportation unless it was on another JetBlue flight. We were first told that we could get on a flight leaving SATURDAY at 9:30pm. This flight was soon booked and the rest of us were left standing there. The next available flight would be on Sunday.

Now we are told that the flight was cancelled and we should rush downstairs to carousel 2 and retrieve our luggage before it is taken to another terminal. (We were in terminal 4 and they were going to take our luggage to terminal 6)

After rushing downstairs to carousel 2, we came to find out after several hours that our luggage was not off the plane yet. We wanted to see a supervisor but of course there was no supervisor to talk to us. The next thing we hear is that our plane had to move away from the gate to allow another plan to come in. Our luggage is still on the plane and who knows when or where this plane will dock.

I found a Jet Blue agent, who told us that our flight WAS NOT cancelled. We told them how we were told that it was buy the gate agents. After waiting several more hours, there still was not any further information for us. As a matter of fact, he told us that the lift to get our luggage off the plane was broken and now it had to be manually taken off the aircraft. We waited an additional 3 1/2 hours for our luggage - now it was 6:30pm.

We had nothing to drink or eat all day. I am a diabetic and I only had medication on me for lunch, thinking that I would be with my luggage by dinner time. That was not to happen.

I understand that the airline is not responsible for the weather, but they are most certainly responsible for keeping us on the plane, in the terminal, and most definitely responsible for not giving us back our luggage in a timely manner. It was a good 6 hours that JetBlue kept our luggage on the plane once the flight was cancelled.

I finally arrived back at my home at 10pm on Feb. 14, 2007. This was some vacation. This makes me leary to want to continue to use JetBlue again. After all, they weren't very helpful in getting our luggage off the aircraft and certainly not helpful at all in letting us know about any addiitional planes being put on to accommodate those passengers that were stranded.

--Andrea Rowan


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