Feb 18, 2007 10:33 am US/Eastern
JetBlue To Continue Cancellations Into Monday
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Passengers waited up to 10 hours on some JetBlue flights at JFK Airport on Wednesday.
CBS
JetBlue said it would be canceling almost a quarter of its flights on Monday in hopes of getting back to full operations on Tuesday, almost a week after a Valentine's Day snowstorm created a travel meltdown for the airline.
The airline had scheduled 600 flights for President's Day, even more than the 550 to 575 flights on a normal Monday. Of those, 139 flights have been canceled, JetBlue announced late Saturday night.
JetBlue Airways Corp. spokesman Sebastian White said headway was being made on Sunday, but that the cancellations on Monday were needed to make sure all flight crews had gotten the legally mandated amount of rest before taking to the skies again.
"Canceling one more day's operations will really help reset our airline," White said Sunday.
All flights on JetBlue were canceled in and out of 11 airports: Richmond, Va.; Pittsburgh; Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham, N.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Austin and Houston, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Nashville; Portland, Me.; and Bermuda.
The cancellations followed hundreds of other canceled and delayed flights since Wednesday, when a snow and ice storm grounded jets at John F. Kennedy International Airport, and all the way through the weekend.
Irate passengers tried to figure out what to do, and baggage handlers also struggled to deal with the mountain of luggage that had been dropped off by passengers, but returned to the terminals because of the cancelations. Some passengers complained that they couldn't leave the airport, even after their flights were canceled, because no one could find their bags.
JetBlue's service hot lines also became overwhelmed by people trying to rebook flights.
Affected customers may receive refunds or rebook their flights, the airline said.
The airline said it initially tried to get its system back to normal by selectively canceling flights Thursday and Friday, but long delays continued as a result of constraints that included a one-runway operation at JFK on Thursday, and flight crews burning through the number of hours they are legally allowed to work before taking a rest.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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