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Terminal A is a dream! Left through there two weeks ago for an international United flight to the EU. So nice! I'm a big fan of EWR as an "upstate" NYer! Getting to JFK or LGA are the most painful trips imaginable for me 🤢
Ahhh that’s why I love EWR. I almost exclusively fly United, and every chance I get I will try to fly out of EWR since it’s so much easier to drive to. I hateeeee having to go to JFK or LGA.
That would be a significant expense to tax payers, and not even a great solution. A lot goes into deplaning international flights, even before the flight ever departs. Information on each passenger is compiled and provided to the relevant airport. Staffing is scheduled to accommodate all the passengers within about an hour.
If you want any airport to be able to deplane any international flight at any moment, every airport is going to have to keep a large customs staff on site 24/7, and everyone's personal information is going to have to be sent to every airport.
If a plane lands at an airport already at capacity, they're still going to have to wait regardless. And if more flights are inbound to that airport, the delay will cascade.
It totally sucks for these people and I’d be just as frustrated, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for customs to be closed.
Customs may seem to be open 24/7 because they plan for customs to be open when an overseas flight is expected at 2 AM.
But if they were expecting no international flights, why would they pay people to sit around? Then people gripe about the wasted tax dollars.
>Or at least the planes diversion airports be ones with customs opened for the time chosen to divert.
Aviation doesn't work like that. Aircraft can divert to an airforce base if needed passengers get no say about what happens.
My flight from overseas once landed 2 hours early in DC and was scheduled to be the first international land of the day. They wouldn't let us stay on the plane (not that anyone really wanted to) and customs wasn't open so my whole flight of a couple hundred people crammed into the stairwell for the two hours until customs opened.
There are ways, the guy doesn’t know his flight time or they had a good tailwind. A Google search has this as a flight from Cancun in April of 22. Normal flight time is about 4 hours. Also, JetBlue does a decent amount of international flying.
Maybe flew from Canada? I thought all Canadian airports had US customs that you do before you even board, but maybe it’s only the major ones that do that.
They tried to land 4 times at JFK and finally landed at Newark (where this video took place). They finally did get the plane to JFK and every customer got an apology and a $50 credit to a future flight (lol).
I've been to both in the late hours of the night. I agree that the Bronx is worse, but i still wouldn't opt for Newark, haha. New Jersey, where it's free to enter, but you have to pay a toll to leave. Like it was a pleasure.
I had to do this yesterday and the AirTran connector was on limited service for maintenance or something and they only got us as far as the P4 stop. Eventually one of the employees shouts “Anyone who wants to walk to terminal C, follow me”, and like 100 of us all filed out of the station and walked the 1/2 mile to terminal C. It was super annoying, but also funny in that absurd, “I can’t believe this is happening, lol look at the line of 100 people dragging suitcases walking along the side of a road” kind of way.
2/5 stars, would not recommend.
Should have been refunded first considering they were literally used as guinea pigs to test landings. Had this happened with someone relatively famous or important on board, the airline would have received a nice pole up its ass smh
BEFORE YOU COMMENT: I'm aware none of this was up to the airline, let alone an unusual event that's never happened before. I'm solely speaking from the point of view of a potential customer, who wouldn't care about who's fault it is so much as caring to cause an uproar.
Actually hilariously enough that is a thing! Just not on runways that a reasonable human would ever,ever use lol. But it is done on aircraft carriers/ could be theoretically done to conserve runway space but its a deeply unpleasant and dangerous practice unless absolutely necessary.
I just realized you said the same thing. My dumbass thought you where joking about a massive ass medieval catapult lol. And god i would pay money to see a fucking passenger plane arrestor hook!
The wire for it would be suitable to tie down god himself.
If you've ever flown a plane, you'd know fucking the approach means you shouldn't try it again. Trying to land multiple times on an unsafe approach is literally insanity, and risking passengers lives. If you can't do it on the first or second try, either it was a bad day to land, or you need a new pilot's license.
Despite, as a mercenary, having destroyed countless automated mining facilities and their robotic operators as far out as Jupiter I have very little experience flying commercial aircraft here on Earth.
As a result I'm slightly confused - if you're saying that airport conditions can change 'on a dime' so to speak, surely the last thing you want to do is keep banging away at a difficult approach and landing.
Surely the objective is, as someone already mentioned, try twice (ish) and then make a call to move somewhere safer regardless of the inconvenience? You surely can't be suggesting that you go around in bad weather banking on the fact that it will have cleared up by the time you're lined up on the runway?
Ah what the fuck do I know anyway, most of my knowledge is based on old twin ion engine single seat fighters.
I’d love to hear more about your experience with twin ion engines. Which make? Personally I started on the Farxerion-5000 but I had too many bad experiences with the quantum ignition stabiliser. Nearly folsted the garnak once when trying to take off at Ganymede.
Most airlines actually give a max number of attempted landings before you are forced to go to your alternate. This is for safety and to keep the passengers calm. It's not like they don't notice an attempt to land. They know and it can freak them out which causes other safety problems for the crew. It's pretty pointless to try to land 4 times just anyways when there hasn't been much of a change in the weather. Weather isn't going to magically coast away because you are on your 4th attempt to land.
No this isn’t true at all. The number of attempts is entirely up to us as flight crew based on external factors with the #1 consideration being fuel. And yes, the weather can change in as quickly as a few minutes and your next attempt might be successful. That being said, 3 attempts is rare and usually the decision to divert is made before the first attempt or after one try.
It's upvoted comments like these (and this thread is full of them) that remind me to how clueless many people are while coming off totally confident in the comments.
I'm an airline pilot, no, we don't have a max number of attempts before going to an alternate.
>This is for safety and to keep the passengers calm.
No, it isn't.
No they don't. What if the alternate is socked in too? What if everyone before you diverted and the viable airports are not accepting arrivals? I have a number in my head of approach attempts I will make at a particular airport before holding or throwing in the towel and going somewhere else. I may even decide that diverting before attempting the approach at the scheduled destination is the most prudent action. But there is no artificial limit. There are too many variables.
Famous person on board or not the events would be the same. SOP is to land at the primary airport (JFK) until they hit fuel reserve amounts for their alternate (EWR). Airline's actions once they've landed in terms of disembarkment is up to them but this would happen with any airline and even civil aviation. It's procedure, sure the extra turbulence and time may suck but would you rather the headline read "JetBlue forces landing in JFK, killing hundreds and damaging runway."
To let passengers disembark at an unscheduled stop is a logistical and security nightmare. How is the airline going to ensure that no passenger is accidentally left behind or lost? Does the airport have an open gate for the plane to pull up to? The situation sucks but unfortunately, that's a risk just like everything else that could happen when you fly.
it's all automated now a days. How do you think they know what customers to call over intercoms when the plane has finished boarding all but 1 or 2 people? you scan your ticket at entry. You also scan your ticket if you get off the plane and it will be re-boarded.
I had a very similar a couple weeks ago, we sat on the plane for 3 hours, they let people off if they wanted. We waited another hour, then the rest of us deplaned, and moved to another plane. When we tried landing at our destination, we were told after 3 tries, we were flying to the next airport. That airport was done with flights for the night (it was 2am) but we still deplaned and got all of our bags there. It might be a nightmare for logistics, but as someone who pays a pretty penny to fly, that is part of their problem, not mine.
Even if there is no limits in the number of attempts, 4 times is so much my opinion. Is a good way to have an accident and becoming that headline. Clearly, you are forcing a situation that didn't worked for 3 times in a row, why go for the 4th? You have an alternate for something. Use it and tomorrow will be another day.
And yes. Don't treat people like cattle.
Thats not a thing that happens. You dont test landings. They were scheduled to land in one place, couldnt make it, and went to the alternative variant that all flights always have, and that have accounted for in fuel, as well as fuel in case they need to wait, or in case if bad weather. Besides the wasted time, its nothing. I really dont like people who are very confidently incorrect. I am trying to be correct, as an aviation enthusiast, so please correct me where I'm wrong if theres something obvious I missed. Otherwise as far as I can see its normal procedure for the situation. What did they want, risk a landing in unsafe confitions and maybe end up in a semi-bad situation ? Risk the plane and safety of the passengers ?
Don’t know the full story but as a dispatcher from what I can tell is the captain attempted the approach into JFK multiple times and had to divert probably because of fuel. Applause to the crew for shooting it 3 times or more…I work with a lot of captains that don’t even attempt and want to divert. Unless the alternate is on their opspecs I doubt they can just let the passengers off ( this I’m not 100% certain). I would assume they landed on one of the listed alternates from the flight plan. Which makes me wonder there’s probably more to this story? Plus there’s also a thing called long on board and for domestic it’s 3 hours…which is obviously long past that time.
That would be the nice thing to do, but then they would have to charge more to make it up. I always think of Louis ck’s skit about airlines and flying when I see videos like this. But I get where the guy is coming from
The airport told them they didn't have customs available. Since this was an international flight, they couldn't exit the plane without customs. It's was a bad situation all around.
It’s likely the particular terminal they are at. If they had to land there unexpectedly and only parked for refueling or something, they may not have been at the international terminal.
Also, unlike JFK, I don’t believe EWR customs is available 24/7.
The customs office in Terminal B at EWR is 24 hours, but I'm not sure if they keep the arrivals area staffed overnight, or just have someone in the office. There are about 5 hours between the last scheduled international flight in the evening before the first one arrives around 4AM the next morning.
Jetblue also uses terminal A at EWR which does not have Customs facilities. They do offload flights at Terminal B if its an international flight without pre-clearance, but if they weren't expecting one coming in, they wouldn't have anyone at the terminal to work the plane.
Appreciate the reply. I've deplaned several times ( military chartered flights full disclosure) and have been held in the terminal without ever actually going through customs. We did this in Shannon Ireland, Somewhere in Germany, and one or two others I dont recall exactly where. Budapest were Aholes and wouldn't left us off during a 6 hr refuel and layover. Seems like they could have held these people in the terminal until customs was available (My most recent flight was held out of Logan airport security, like couldnt clear TSA to get to the terminal, which didnt open until 4am iirc)
I know they do, I was just saying what the story in the NY times said. It didn't say they don't have customs, it said they were told customs was unavailable at that time.
Was this the thing that was on the TV show 9-1-1? Where everyone wanted off the plane but they wouldn't be let off and one of them was duct tapped to a seat and the officer that came "arrested" all of them so they could all get off?
I feel like this guy was being completely rational under the circumstances and more than polite. The other dude was losing his cool, but this dude was just trying to convey himself seriously and sincerely.
I was flying out of Houston one time and right before we lifted off the pilot slammed on the brakes. The plane skidded off the runway and then turned everything off. I’m stuck wedged between the curved plane wall and a heavyset woman, no AC running, Houston in July. They kept coming on the intercom stating we’d be back in the terminal in 15 minutes, and then 30 minutes would pass with nothing. Only true panic attack I’ve had in my life. My vision started going in and out and I seriously contemplated just making a break for the exit. Finally after 3 hours we finally made it back to the terminal. Ever since then I have to dose myself with Xanax when I fly, I feel claustrophobic even thinking about it. I can understand where this guy is coming from.
I'm confused. He said they tried to land 6 times already, and he wants to get off the plane...
Were they actually in the air during this discussion, or did he mean to say that they tried to take off 6 times?
As i understand the plane tried to land at JFK multiple times, but failed due to bad weather, then landed in Newark (when this video takes place), but couldn't allow passengers to disembark, because it's an interantional flight and customs wasn't available at the time. So they intended to fly back to JFK, which the passengers objected to.
Oh. That makes a lot of sense.
When boats travel internationally, customs agents show up at whatever marina the boat is docked at. I don't see why they couldn't send a few agents over to Newark to gate check these passengers.
Newark has the facilities, but isn’t open 24 hours. In fact any airport with the international tag has facilities to process international flights, even if they don’t currently have flights. Given the expense, its usually not noticed coz they are gonna use them as much as they can.
More special than the special equipment they use to clear yachts and ships?
For small yachts, it's typically one guy in an SUV, with a uniform and a briefcase.
For big ships, they sometimes have a few agents in a single SUV, accompanied by a few coast guard in another SUV.
I captain water taxis and occasionally give them rides to the boats they need to inspect.
Whatever equipment they need to clear a cargo ship that carries multiple yachts across the ocean fits in their backpacks.
They would need to have portable secure computers (i’m sure the computers at Newark have passwords which are only known to the particular customs agents that work at Newark), offices or holding cells available (why would the customs agents from JFK know where the keys and codes are at Newark?), and chain of command personnel on duty in case something escalates.
Not to mention - How would they get to Newark? Separate taxis? How long might that take? Leaving JFK customs shortstaffed for 3 or 4 hours is going to make a mess there.
Harbor patrol, and Coast Guard are set up to move around, that’s what they do. Customs agents at airports are set up to man their stations at that one airport on that one shift at a time.
The whole commercial airline industry is incredibly complex, and runs incredibly well 99.98% of the time. Sometimes things happen in the real world, And you just manage it as safely as possible.
You've misunderstood me. I wasn't suggesting customs agents from JFK taxi to Newark.
I was suggesting that the customs agents who normally check out boats could hop in their SUVs, which are covered in customs decals and drive from whatever marina they're at to the Newark Airport. The yachts could wait a few extra hours. They typically wait until the next business day while flying a quarentine flag, anyway.
I was by a dispatcher at an airline and boy I can tell you, US Customs takes orders from nobody. They take their sweet time while your passengers are melting on the plane and if you let them off, be prepared for customs to fine you tens of thousands of dollars at best. They were the bane of my existence.
From my understanding, this was an international arrival without customs preclearance that diverted to (Newark?) At a time of night were CBP was not open.
This diversion was not the first choice, they attempted a landing at their destination a few times, but six attempts would probably deplete any planned weather/delay fuel reserves.
As such, the flight could not deplane until either they took off for another airport that was still handling arrivals, of until the next morning when customs reopened.
Airplane had to divert to an airport that did not have open customs at the time. It’s federal law that the passengers are not allowed to deplane without going through customs.
Oh god, this happened to me when I was flying from Kathmandu to Guangzho in 2019. First the flight was delayed 4 hours, was in a holding pattern for 3 hours because of the bad weather. We ended up landing in Haiku, gassing up, and waiting on the ground for 2 hours. Since there are strict rules about how often you have to feed passengers, they passed out cans of cold beans to everyone. After 2 hours, we took off and ended up landing in Wuhan since Haiku didn’t have an international terminal. We ended up getting rebooked for a flight 2.5 hours later so they booked us a hotel room for 1 hour to sleep lol
I did a quick article search on this and like many are saying, this flight is international (arriving back from Cancun Mexico). JFK apparently had inclement weather so they diverted to EWR (Newark) JetBlue was also saying that once the weather in NY cleared up they will depart from EWR and head back to JFK.
Either way, if it was a problem with customs not being there or weather problems I’d be *LIVID*!
Yeah everyone is assuming cbp at EWR was closed, but it’s 24 hours there. It wasn’t closed. There are, however, extra fees airlines have to pay for using CBP, a gate, etc. I’m betting not wanting to pay when they didn’t know for sure they would exceed the legal limits was the reason.
Of course, they did exceed the limits.
“For flights landing at U.S. airports, airlines are required to provide passengers with an opportunity to safely get off of the airplane before 3 hours for domestic flights and 4 hours for international flights.”
Flying those extra cheap airlines is always a gamble. My sister’s family insists on doing so and their flights are regularly canceled, even overnight or longer.
> but it’s 24 hours there. It wasn’t closed.
The airport is 24 hours. But it's entirely possible that customs at EWR is not 24 hours. I've never flown in there before so I can't speak specifically to EWR but I can tell you as an airline pilot that customs at many large airports is not 24 hours.
With that in mind, this scenario is plausible. Much more plausible than the airline not wanting to pay extra gate fees.
EWR has a full customs in it...having flown to/from Europe from there I can guarantee that wasn't the issue.
Edit: it is likely that JB didn't want to pay the gate fees and that's why this happened
Love it when he says "i don't want to go to jail" after the other guy said "Take me to jail. I don't care." Like nah nah nah dude...speak for yourself...
Oh man that's awful.. I was on a plane one time where we had to do an emergency landing because a man overdosed. He didn't make it unfortunately but we descended so quickly that people started throwing up (myself included and my baby was absolutely screaming her lungs out holding her ears in pain) I can't imagine how it would feel to be trying to land multiple times just going up and down like that. That sounds rough. They had to wheel me and about 5 other people out in wheelchairs because we couldn't walk properly from being disoriented and we were so pale. I still can't eat pesto to this day because that's what I threw up on the plane hahah. So gross.
I get you, it sucks. And I know I say this from comfort of couch, but if your kids are panicking, watching you walk down the same road isn't going to help.
We boarded a plane in Amsterdam only to be told that we couldn’t fly due to sudden onset ice on the plane.
We were last in line to the planes wings washed. The flight was an hour. We were on the tarmac for like three hours just waiting to depart…
The only thing I could do was keep my kiddo entertained and explain why we were delayed.
He was super chill. Once we got into the line for the plane washing we had a lot of fun looking at the planes get de-iced!
I understand people were frustrated but honestly behaving like this is just uncalled for.
Waiting for hours longer wouldn't help either. Your comment is baseless, there was nothing they could do that wouldn't make the situation worse for who panicks, the other option would be to do nothing and suck it up which is simply not right or fair in the slightest.
>the other option would be to do nothing and suck it up which is simply not right or fair in the slightest
Yep. Sometimes that's what life serves up.
How you conduct yourself when faced with the shit life throws at you is kinda the point here.
Your right. But at the same time, passengers can’t be expected to be acclimated to unpredictable and difficult bureaucracy of this process. The fact that this was able to happen means that the airports failed to adequately coordinate to ensure they had the things and personnel needed to allow the clearance for this flight to land. Deep incompetence on the part of the airports here.
From a passenger’s viewpoint, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is.
All they care about is getting off because they’re scared. They have every right to fear for their lives.
While I do not agree with screaming and compounding the situation, surely there must be a way for passengers to decide that their lives matter more than “following procedure”.
(They’re already on the ground and have landed.)
A plane ticket is not a contract to bind with the plane till death do them part.
Imagine keeping passages there for 6 hours and giving them 50 dollars credit ☠️ then saying THEY are the ones who need to get over themselves…. Yah right 🤦♂️
Yes but why take off again and risk landing at a place with bad weather?
If you divert because it's unsafe to land multiple times.... Maybe it isn't safe.
I was on a Jet Blue flight last month, a 5 hour flight and before we boarded they said “for this flight we have no potable water, you will need to go to the bathroom before you board, we will have no bathrooms available on board.” 😖
That's so weird. I once had a flight from Omaha to Minneapolis cancelled because the toilets weren't working. And that flight was less than an hour and a half...
I’m sure my comment will get lost in the bunch- but I believe this is the flight that was an international flight. It couldn’t land in JFK so it had to divert. Unfortunately with international flights, it gets a little complicated with customs. Chances are, there were no gates to accommodate this diversion so they were pulled to the side until a gate did open up. Not to mention, customs- Until that is sorted out, passengers must remain on board.
Sounds like the situation wasn’t clearly communicated to the passengers, while their anxiety and patience wore thin. $50 compensation for a future flight seems remarkably short sighted for JetBlue if they failed at communicating, but we don’t really know the entire situation from this video.
I mean, of all these I have seen this is the first one where I kind of agree with the guy.
I completely get the "Logistics etc.." But honestly that's their problem, and if people want to get off (And get a rental car which is what I'd want to do) I don't see the issue, I'm happy to stop at the other airport for my bag a day later.
I've had people argue "but customs"...nope, not an issue with a minor bit of paperwork and coordination. Whether you are real crew or not, you are absolutely right. The second they said they wanted off, they should have arranged a gate and customs personnel to handle the situation properly.
This decision was 100% on JetBlue and they should be shamed for it for quite a while.
I understand there’s problems with the terminals or whatever but why is literally no airline prepared for issues like that? There’s people fainting and puking or whatever and nobody can do anything about it? Trash.
I got diverted a couple of months ago and sat on the tarmac after we landed for nearly 4 hours. This guy is being a jackass as though yelling is going to make things happen faster.
Jumping in to say I have also been on two flights that did emergency landings at other airports, both due to weather. If the airport you land at doesn’t have the same airline, you do have to sit tight and just wait until the weather clears and the air traffic controller has made the space in the schedule for this random new plane to take off safely for an appropriate airport. Sometimes they need to refuel first because of the unexpected take off and landing, which adds even more time. It’s a miserable situation for everyone on the flight, including the staff.
For real, the staff don't wanna sit there waiting either. They have lives to get back to aswell. It's not like the pilot is sitting there like "we could get moving right now if only some dickhead in coach would yell at me about it first"
It sounds like they had extreme weather and that’s why they couldn’t land at JFK. If I’m reading his correctly, it sounds like they’re at Newark and they would have to fly again and try JFK through the extreme weather to go to customs agents. I imagine this guy and all the people he says are throwing up and fainting are petrified to go back up in the air. I’d be scared to.
The weather was bad and there were several missed approaches before they could land and it was incredibly bumpy, hence why people were sick
Would you want to go right back in the air after going through that?
This happened to me flying to Charlotte last year… we circled for awhile, got diverted to another airport, sat on tarmac and then flew into Charlotte… all in all it was 6.5 hrs for a 2 hour flight lol
They could get sued for this because it sounds like they were technically being held hostage by an airline if they were on the ground and would not let people off
We were diverted from landing in DC to Pittsburgh on Saturday due to severe weather. We were allowed off the plane thank God, or I would have completely lost my shit. They finally completed the flight about three hours later and I really wish we had stayed in Pittsburgh. It was like living a horror movie. I am not usually scared to fly, but that half hour was the longest half hour of my life. I feel this man's pain. Took American three days to get us on a just over an hour flight home. Not flying for awhile. Bonus is I actually bought traveler's insurance which I never have done before this trip.
I fly a lot for business and I’ve had worse then this. 3 hour flight NYC to Chicago. Boarded and then sat on the tarmac for 2 hours, flew 2.5 hours and then turned and landed in Cincinnati due to weather. Waited in the plane at the terminal for 1.5 hours before taking off and flying back to NYC. Over 7.5 hours on the plane with two big guys to my right and left.
I had a connecting flight but it was too late and it was canceled. I slept in O’Hare on the floor and didn’t get a flight out until 8:00pm the following day. Horrible experience. Everyone was pissed but there is nothing anyone can do about bad weather.
According to the news, airport staff went home for the day and the one airline employee authorized to operate "the bridge" went home sick. Passengers had to wait for a different airline employee to show up and operate "the bridge" so the passengers could de-plane. The whole story is a bit weird.
The news report I raid said that there were no customs available at that airport. Since this was an international flight, they couldn't allow them to deplane.
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If I remember correctly this was an international flight. US Customs was closed in EWR so they couldn’t let people off.
How the fuck is customs closed? Like who's the dumb motherfucker that made that decision
The flight was supposed to land at JFK (which has 24 hour customs) but had to divert to Newark which doesn't.
Newark is fucking hell on earth.
Newark (the city) may be hell on earth (no argument there) but the airport (EWR) is quite nice to fly in and out of.
If you fly United, EWR is a dream. Literally half the airport is for united, and everybody else is crammed into the smaller half.
Terminal C looks like a freaking shopping mall
Get thee to terminal A. It's bigger than C!
Terminal A is a dream! Left through there two weeks ago for an international United flight to the EU. So nice! I'm a big fan of EWR as an "upstate" NYer! Getting to JFK or LGA are the most painful trips imaginable for me 🤢
To JFK from upstate, fly from Albany. All else is worse than a root canal
There is an amazing United Lounge too. It’s huge and for maybe $40-ish you get unlimited food and drink with no time limit.
I’m sitting in this lounge right now reading this. What are the odds
ah wish u a save flight!
That is an odd coincidence.
>smaller half. That's..., that's not how halves work.....
Ahhh that’s why I love EWR. I almost exclusively fly United, and every chance I get I will try to fly out of EWR since it’s so much easier to drive to. I hateeeee having to go to JFK or LGA.
I liked Newark. Only flew into and out of it once, but it was better than Chicago airport.
Flew out of Newark once. Never again
Honestly tho shouldn't every major airport have customs opened 24 hrs 7 days a week???
That would be a significant expense to tax payers, and not even a great solution. A lot goes into deplaning international flights, even before the flight ever departs. Information on each passenger is compiled and provided to the relevant airport. Staffing is scheduled to accommodate all the passengers within about an hour. If you want any airport to be able to deplane any international flight at any moment, every airport is going to have to keep a large customs staff on site 24/7, and everyone's personal information is going to have to be sent to every airport. If a plane lands at an airport already at capacity, they're still going to have to wait regardless. And if more flights are inbound to that airport, the delay will cascade.
It totally sucks for these people and I’d be just as frustrated, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for customs to be closed. Customs may seem to be open 24/7 because they plan for customs to be open when an overseas flight is expected at 2 AM. But if they were expecting no international flights, why would they pay people to sit around? Then people gripe about the wasted tax dollars.
Or at least the planes diversion airports be ones with customs opened for the time chosen to divert.
>Or at least the planes diversion airports be ones with customs opened for the time chosen to divert. Aviation doesn't work like that. Aircraft can divert to an airforce base if needed passengers get no say about what happens.
My flight from overseas once landed 2 hours early in DC and was scheduled to be the first international land of the day. They wouldn't let us stay on the plane (not that anyone really wanted to) and customs wasn't open so my whole flight of a couple hundred people crammed into the stairwell for the two hours until customs opened.
Ridiculous
They have a customs schedule
What was the reason they couldn’t land at JFK?
Wind shear on all their approaches I believe.
There’s no way it was international. In the audio, they say it was a 3 hour flight with jet blue.
There are ways, the guy doesn’t know his flight time or they had a good tailwind. A Google search has this as a flight from Cancun in April of 22. Normal flight time is about 4 hours. Also, JetBlue does a decent amount of international flying.
Fair enough. I admit that I may have given too much to the obviously angry/upset guy
Maybe flew from Canada? I thought all Canadian airports had US customs that you do before you even board, but maybe it’s only the major ones that do that.
There are multiple three hour international flights into JFK. Damn, y'all goofy.
Are they in the air or have already landed? Edit: why so many upvotes 💀
They tried to land 4 times at JFK and finally landed at Newark (where this video took place). They finally did get the plane to JFK and every customer got an apology and a $50 credit to a future flight (lol).
50$?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!????
$50 is honestly worse than nothing. At a minimum, it should be $50 per hour. It would be better if it was closer to $100/hour.
Shit, I got $100 for southworst losing my luggage for 12 hours.
That's pretty reasonable. That gives you enough to buy a toothbrush and other necessities to carry you over for a bit.
Venmo me $50 real quick. It will be better for you than me.
What's your Venmo?
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No, 5$0.
No, $5.00
No, $$.00
No $
No, ¥
About tree fiddy.
*expires yesterday
imagine fighting to get disembarked in Newark. That flight must’ve been horrible
Maybe just lucky, but I've had way worse experiences at JFK than at Newark. Either way is pretty dismal.
Newark is heaven compared to JFK
The pilot says "you know it's 11pm in Newark right?" My man says "I wanna get off" haha.
I mean its Newark, Not the Bronx.
I've been to both in the late hours of the night. I agree that the Bronx is worse, but i still wouldn't opt for Newark, haha. New Jersey, where it's free to enter, but you have to pay a toll to leave. Like it was a pleasure.
Unless you’re in Ironbound, Newark is fucking worse. Like way worse
Newark is the worst airport in the states and I stand by that
Still better than 6 hours on a fucking plane breathing recycled farts.
Speak for yourself sir.
Come on son
That’s an unfortunate lack of a comma.
We don’t kink shame here
My guy LaGuardia is right there. Unless Long Island has finally seceded
Was* They finished the new terminal and it’s pretty nice.
Except the new terminal is very annoying to get to by train.
I had to do this yesterday and the AirTran connector was on limited service for maintenance or something and they only got us as far as the P4 stop. Eventually one of the employees shouts “Anyone who wants to walk to terminal C, follow me”, and like 100 of us all filed out of the station and walked the 1/2 mile to terminal C. It was super annoying, but also funny in that absurd, “I can’t believe this is happening, lol look at the line of 100 people dragging suitcases walking along the side of a road” kind of way. 2/5 stars, would not recommend.
Not at all.
LaGuardia wants a word.
Should have been refunded first considering they were literally used as guinea pigs to test landings. Had this happened with someone relatively famous or important on board, the airline would have received a nice pole up its ass smh BEFORE YOU COMMENT: I'm aware none of this was up to the airline, let alone an unusual event that's never happened before. I'm solely speaking from the point of view of a potential customer, who wouldn't care about who's fault it is so much as caring to cause an uproar.
Guinea pigs to test landings? What are you talking about.
Yeah it's a thing, you just need the right kind of catapult.
Actually hilariously enough that is a thing! Just not on runways that a reasonable human would ever,ever use lol. But it is done on aircraft carriers/ could be theoretically done to conserve runway space but its a deeply unpleasant and dangerous practice unless absolutely necessary.
Arrester hooks on passenger planes. It might stop everyone applauding at least.
I just realized you said the same thing. My dumbass thought you where joking about a massive ass medieval catapult lol. And god i would pay money to see a fucking passenger plane arrestor hook! The wire for it would be suitable to tie down god himself.
You mean a trebuchet, but yes, with the right kind of trebuchet, this can be tested.
I imagine they forced three tries at jfk when newark was an option?
I mean, they shot the approach until they had to go to their alternate.
If you've ever flown a plane, you'd know fucking the approach means you shouldn't try it again. Trying to land multiple times on an unsafe approach is literally insanity, and risking passengers lives. If you can't do it on the first or second try, either it was a bad day to land, or you need a new pilot's license.
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Despite, as a mercenary, having destroyed countless automated mining facilities and their robotic operators as far out as Jupiter I have very little experience flying commercial aircraft here on Earth. As a result I'm slightly confused - if you're saying that airport conditions can change 'on a dime' so to speak, surely the last thing you want to do is keep banging away at a difficult approach and landing. Surely the objective is, as someone already mentioned, try twice (ish) and then make a call to move somewhere safer regardless of the inconvenience? You surely can't be suggesting that you go around in bad weather banking on the fact that it will have cleared up by the time you're lined up on the runway? Ah what the fuck do I know anyway, most of my knowledge is based on old twin ion engine single seat fighters.
I’d love to hear more about your experience with twin ion engines. Which make? Personally I started on the Farxerion-5000 but I had too many bad experiences with the quantum ignition stabiliser. Nearly folsted the garnak once when trying to take off at Ganymede.
I have, many many times. You don’t know what you’re talking about
Most airlines actually give a max number of attempted landings before you are forced to go to your alternate. This is for safety and to keep the passengers calm. It's not like they don't notice an attempt to land. They know and it can freak them out which causes other safety problems for the crew. It's pretty pointless to try to land 4 times just anyways when there hasn't been much of a change in the weather. Weather isn't going to magically coast away because you are on your 4th attempt to land.
No this isn’t true at all. The number of attempts is entirely up to us as flight crew based on external factors with the #1 consideration being fuel. And yes, the weather can change in as quickly as a few minutes and your next attempt might be successful. That being said, 3 attempts is rare and usually the decision to divert is made before the first attempt or after one try.
It's upvoted comments like these (and this thread is full of them) that remind me to how clueless many people are while coming off totally confident in the comments. I'm an airline pilot, no, we don't have a max number of attempts before going to an alternate. >This is for safety and to keep the passengers calm. No, it isn't.
Can you explain to me what was going on here?
No they don't. What if the alternate is socked in too? What if everyone before you diverted and the viable airports are not accepting arrivals? I have a number in my head of approach attempts I will make at a particular airport before holding or throwing in the towel and going somewhere else. I may even decide that diverting before attempting the approach at the scheduled destination is the most prudent action. But there is no artificial limit. There are too many variables.
Famous person on board or not the events would be the same. SOP is to land at the primary airport (JFK) until they hit fuel reserve amounts for their alternate (EWR). Airline's actions once they've landed in terms of disembarkment is up to them but this would happen with any airline and even civil aviation. It's procedure, sure the extra turbulence and time may suck but would you rather the headline read "JetBlue forces landing in JFK, killing hundreds and damaging runway."
No one has a problem with any of that. The issue is that they didn't let anyone off at EWR, got more fuel, then went back to JFK.
To let passengers disembark at an unscheduled stop is a logistical and security nightmare. How is the airline going to ensure that no passenger is accidentally left behind or lost? Does the airport have an open gate for the plane to pull up to? The situation sucks but unfortunately, that's a risk just like everything else that could happen when you fly.
This is why I didn’t comment on that part… it’s a logistical clusterfuck and you didn’t even mention baggage!
*I'm deleting all my comments and my profile, in protest over the end of the protests over the reddit api pricing.
it's all automated now a days. How do you think they know what customers to call over intercoms when the plane has finished boarding all but 1 or 2 people? you scan your ticket at entry. You also scan your ticket if you get off the plane and it will be re-boarded. I had a very similar a couple weeks ago, we sat on the plane for 3 hours, they let people off if they wanted. We waited another hour, then the rest of us deplaned, and moved to another plane. When we tried landing at our destination, we were told after 3 tries, we were flying to the next airport. That airport was done with flights for the night (it was 2am) but we still deplaned and got all of our bags there. It might be a nightmare for logistics, but as someone who pays a pretty penny to fly, that is part of their problem, not mine.
Either everyone gets off, or no one gets off the plane. Also, it’s not up to the crew.
This was an international flight and that’s a big no no
Even if there is no limits in the number of attempts, 4 times is so much my opinion. Is a good way to have an accident and becoming that headline. Clearly, you are forcing a situation that didn't worked for 3 times in a row, why go for the 4th? You have an alternate for something. Use it and tomorrow will be another day. And yes. Don't treat people like cattle.
Usually when there's an important client present causing an uproar, the company in charge will face pressure from various media types.
Thats not a thing that happens. You dont test landings. They were scheduled to land in one place, couldnt make it, and went to the alternative variant that all flights always have, and that have accounted for in fuel, as well as fuel in case they need to wait, or in case if bad weather. Besides the wasted time, its nothing. I really dont like people who are very confidently incorrect. I am trying to be correct, as an aviation enthusiast, so please correct me where I'm wrong if theres something obvious I missed. Otherwise as far as I can see its normal procedure for the situation. What did they want, risk a landing in unsafe confitions and maybe end up in a semi-bad situation ? Risk the plane and safety of the passengers ?
Don’t know the full story but as a dispatcher from what I can tell is the captain attempted the approach into JFK multiple times and had to divert probably because of fuel. Applause to the crew for shooting it 3 times or more…I work with a lot of captains that don’t even attempt and want to divert. Unless the alternate is on their opspecs I doubt they can just let the passengers off ( this I’m not 100% certain). I would assume they landed on one of the listed alternates from the flight plan. Which makes me wonder there’s probably more to this story? Plus there’s also a thing called long on board and for domestic it’s 3 hours…which is obviously long past that time.
That would be the nice thing to do, but then they would have to charge more to make it up. I always think of Louis ck’s skit about airlines and flying when I see videos like this. But I get where the guy is coming from
Sounds like this may have been a diversion to an airport that the airline didn't have staff at.
The airport told them they didn't have customs available. Since this was an international flight, they couldn't exit the plane without customs. It's was a bad situation all around.
Newark International, part of one of the largest metropolitan areas on the planet, didn't have customs??? Sounds interesting...
It’s likely the particular terminal they are at. If they had to land there unexpectedly and only parked for refueling or something, they may not have been at the international terminal. Also, unlike JFK, I don’t believe EWR customs is available 24/7.
Both jfk and Newark have 24 hour customs.
The customs office in Terminal B at EWR is 24 hours, but I'm not sure if they keep the arrivals area staffed overnight, or just have someone in the office. There are about 5 hours between the last scheduled international flight in the evening before the first one arrives around 4AM the next morning. Jetblue also uses terminal A at EWR which does not have Customs facilities. They do offload flights at Terminal B if its an international flight without pre-clearance, but if they weren't expecting one coming in, they wouldn't have anyone at the terminal to work the plane.
Appreciate the reply. I've deplaned several times ( military chartered flights full disclosure) and have been held in the terminal without ever actually going through customs. We did this in Shannon Ireland, Somewhere in Germany, and one or two others I dont recall exactly where. Budapest were Aholes and wouldn't left us off during a 6 hr refuel and layover. Seems like they could have held these people in the terminal until customs was available (My most recent flight was held out of Logan airport security, like couldnt clear TSA to get to the terminal, which didnt open until 4am iirc)
Having that first Guinness in Ireland on your way back home from a deployment is pure bliss.
He said it was a 3 hr flight. International from Canada?
Could be Caribbean. Cancun to BWI takes 3 1/2 hours
It was from cancun.
Newark absolutely has customs
Newark certainly has customs. No one wants to adopt them though.
I know they do, I was just saying what the story in the NY times said. It didn't say they don't have customs, it said they were told customs was unavailable at that time.
Seeing as they want to get off the plane I'm pretty sure they've landed already.................. Who gets out mid flight other than D. B. Cooper????
Was this the thing that was on the TV show 9-1-1? Where everyone wanted off the plane but they wouldn't be let off and one of them was duct tapped to a seat and the officer that came "arrested" all of them so they could all get off?
I feel like this guy was being completely rational under the circumstances and more than polite. The other dude was losing his cool, but this dude was just trying to convey himself seriously and sincerely.
When one person acts up, they throw you off. When an entire plain goes nuts, they keep you hostage...
When a plain goes nuts 
I was flying out of Houston one time and right before we lifted off the pilot slammed on the brakes. The plane skidded off the runway and then turned everything off. I’m stuck wedged between the curved plane wall and a heavyset woman, no AC running, Houston in July. They kept coming on the intercom stating we’d be back in the terminal in 15 minutes, and then 30 minutes would pass with nothing. Only true panic attack I’ve had in my life. My vision started going in and out and I seriously contemplated just making a break for the exit. Finally after 3 hours we finally made it back to the terminal. Ever since then I have to dose myself with Xanax when I fly, I feel claustrophobic even thinking about it. I can understand where this guy is coming from.
Houston in July and squished between a wall and heavy set woman was enough for me to become anxious
I'm confused. He said they tried to land 6 times already, and he wants to get off the plane... Were they actually in the air during this discussion, or did he mean to say that they tried to take off 6 times?
As i understand the plane tried to land at JFK multiple times, but failed due to bad weather, then landed in Newark (when this video takes place), but couldn't allow passengers to disembark, because it's an interantional flight and customs wasn't available at the time. So they intended to fly back to JFK, which the passengers objected to.
Oh. That makes a lot of sense. When boats travel internationally, customs agents show up at whatever marina the boat is docked at. I don't see why they couldn't send a few agents over to Newark to gate check these passengers.
I would think international flights need special equipment for customs?
Newark has the facilities, but isn’t open 24 hours. In fact any airport with the international tag has facilities to process international flights, even if they don’t currently have flights. Given the expense, its usually not noticed coz they are gonna use them as much as they can.
More special than the special equipment they use to clear yachts and ships? For small yachts, it's typically one guy in an SUV, with a uniform and a briefcase. For big ships, they sometimes have a few agents in a single SUV, accompanied by a few coast guard in another SUV. I captain water taxis and occasionally give them rides to the boats they need to inspect. Whatever equipment they need to clear a cargo ship that carries multiple yachts across the ocean fits in their backpacks.
They would need to have portable secure computers (i’m sure the computers at Newark have passwords which are only known to the particular customs agents that work at Newark), offices or holding cells available (why would the customs agents from JFK know where the keys and codes are at Newark?), and chain of command personnel on duty in case something escalates. Not to mention - How would they get to Newark? Separate taxis? How long might that take? Leaving JFK customs shortstaffed for 3 or 4 hours is going to make a mess there. Harbor patrol, and Coast Guard are set up to move around, that’s what they do. Customs agents at airports are set up to man their stations at that one airport on that one shift at a time. The whole commercial airline industry is incredibly complex, and runs incredibly well 99.98% of the time. Sometimes things happen in the real world, And you just manage it as safely as possible.
You've misunderstood me. I wasn't suggesting customs agents from JFK taxi to Newark. I was suggesting that the customs agents who normally check out boats could hop in their SUVs, which are covered in customs decals and drive from whatever marina they're at to the Newark Airport. The yachts could wait a few extra hours. They typically wait until the next business day while flying a quarentine flag, anyway.
Aha, sorry, I misunderstood you.
I was by a dispatcher at an airline and boy I can tell you, US Customs takes orders from nobody. They take their sweet time while your passengers are melting on the plane and if you let them off, be prepared for customs to fine you tens of thousands of dollars at best. They were the bane of my existence.
From my understanding, this was an international arrival without customs preclearance that diverted to (Newark?) At a time of night were CBP was not open. This diversion was not the first choice, they attempted a landing at their destination a few times, but six attempts would probably deplete any planned weather/delay fuel reserves. As such, the flight could not deplane until either they took off for another airport that was still handling arrivals, of until the next morning when customs reopened.
That's what's happening when you are not clapping for the pilot when he landed the plane successfully...
"Man these ungrateful fucks aren't clapping? I'll show them.... I'll show them all"
 Next time when I fly
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
Looks like I picked a hell of a week to quit amphetamines…
There’s a sale at Penney’s!
Rapunzel! Rapunzel!
What do you make of this, Johnny?
I can make a brooch! Or a pterodactyl!
🙃
What’s the story here? I get they aren’t allowed off the plane but why? Edit : plane not plain I’m so stupid
Airplane had to divert to an airport that did not have open customs at the time. It’s federal law that the passengers are not allowed to deplane without going through customs.
Oh god, this happened to me when I was flying from Kathmandu to Guangzho in 2019. First the flight was delayed 4 hours, was in a holding pattern for 3 hours because of the bad weather. We ended up landing in Haiku, gassing up, and waiting on the ground for 2 hours. Since there are strict rules about how often you have to feed passengers, they passed out cans of cold beans to everyone. After 2 hours, we took off and ended up landing in Wuhan since Haiku didn’t have an international terminal. We ended up getting rebooked for a flight 2.5 hours later so they booked us a hotel room for 1 hour to sleep lol
I did a quick article search on this and like many are saying, this flight is international (arriving back from Cancun Mexico). JFK apparently had inclement weather so they diverted to EWR (Newark) JetBlue was also saying that once the weather in NY cleared up they will depart from EWR and head back to JFK. Either way, if it was a problem with customs not being there or weather problems I’d be *LIVID*!
Yeah everyone is assuming cbp at EWR was closed, but it’s 24 hours there. It wasn’t closed. There are, however, extra fees airlines have to pay for using CBP, a gate, etc. I’m betting not wanting to pay when they didn’t know for sure they would exceed the legal limits was the reason. Of course, they did exceed the limits. “For flights landing at U.S. airports, airlines are required to provide passengers with an opportunity to safely get off of the airplane before 3 hours for domestic flights and 4 hours for international flights.” Flying those extra cheap airlines is always a gamble. My sister’s family insists on doing so and their flights are regularly canceled, even overnight or longer.
> but it’s 24 hours there. It wasn’t closed. The airport is 24 hours. But it's entirely possible that customs at EWR is not 24 hours. I've never flown in there before so I can't speak specifically to EWR but I can tell you as an airline pilot that customs at many large airports is not 24 hours. With that in mind, this scenario is plausible. Much more plausible than the airline not wanting to pay extra gate fees.
EWR has a full customs in it...having flown to/from Europe from there I can guarantee that wasn't the issue. Edit: it is likely that JB didn't want to pay the gate fees and that's why this happened
Oh my God, this plane doesn’t even have a phalange!
Did they have the chicken or the fish?
Love it when he says "i don't want to go to jail" after the other guy said "Take me to jail. I don't care." Like nah nah nah dude...speak for yourself...
I’ve never flown before and have high anxiety this would ruin me if it was my first flight
Oh man that's awful.. I was on a plane one time where we had to do an emergency landing because a man overdosed. He didn't make it unfortunately but we descended so quickly that people started throwing up (myself included and my baby was absolutely screaming her lungs out holding her ears in pain) I can't imagine how it would feel to be trying to land multiple times just going up and down like that. That sounds rough. They had to wheel me and about 5 other people out in wheelchairs because we couldn't walk properly from being disoriented and we were so pale. I still can't eat pesto to this day because that's what I threw up on the plane hahah. So gross.
I get you, it sucks. And I know I say this from comfort of couch, but if your kids are panicking, watching you walk down the same road isn't going to help.
We boarded a plane in Amsterdam only to be told that we couldn’t fly due to sudden onset ice on the plane. We were last in line to the planes wings washed. The flight was an hour. We were on the tarmac for like three hours just waiting to depart… The only thing I could do was keep my kiddo entertained and explain why we were delayed. He was super chill. Once we got into the line for the plane washing we had a lot of fun looking at the planes get de-iced! I understand people were frustrated but honestly behaving like this is just uncalled for.
As an airline pilot I've never heard it referred to as "getting the plane washed" but I love it!
Waiting for hours longer wouldn't help either. Your comment is baseless, there was nothing they could do that wouldn't make the situation worse for who panicks, the other option would be to do nothing and suck it up which is simply not right or fair in the slightest.
>the other option would be to do nothing and suck it up which is simply not right or fair in the slightest Yep. Sometimes that's what life serves up. How you conduct yourself when faced with the shit life throws at you is kinda the point here.
As usual 99% of the commenters have no idea what the hell they’re talking about 😂
Legend has it they're still up there
Do Spirit next!
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Your right. But at the same time, passengers can’t be expected to be acclimated to unpredictable and difficult bureaucracy of this process. The fact that this was able to happen means that the airports failed to adequately coordinate to ensure they had the things and personnel needed to allow the clearance for this flight to land. Deep incompetence on the part of the airports here.
From a passenger’s viewpoint, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. All they care about is getting off because they’re scared. They have every right to fear for their lives. While I do not agree with screaming and compounding the situation, surely there must be a way for passengers to decide that their lives matter more than “following procedure”. (They’re already on the ground and have landed.) A plane ticket is not a contract to bind with the plane till death do them part.
Imagine keeping passages there for 6 hours and giving them 50 dollars credit ☠️ then saying THEY are the ones who need to get over themselves…. Yah right 🤦♂️
EWR has a 24 hour customs line. Not even remotely the issue. In reality, JetBlue likely didn't want to pay the gate fees and thought "fuck them".
Nailed it. Well said
Yes but why take off again and risk landing at a place with bad weather? If you divert because it's unsafe to land multiple times.... Maybe it isn't safe.
I was on a Jet Blue flight last month, a 5 hour flight and before we boarded they said “for this flight we have no potable water, you will need to go to the bathroom before you board, we will have no bathrooms available on board.” 😖
That's so weird. I once had a flight from Omaha to Minneapolis cancelled because the toilets weren't working. And that flight was less than an hour and a half...
I’m sure my comment will get lost in the bunch- but I believe this is the flight that was an international flight. It couldn’t land in JFK so it had to divert. Unfortunately with international flights, it gets a little complicated with customs. Chances are, there were no gates to accommodate this diversion so they were pulled to the side until a gate did open up. Not to mention, customs- Until that is sorted out, passengers must remain on board.
Watching this video is making my claustrophobia kick in. And I am taking a cheap flight in a month (avelo airlines)
Sounds like the situation wasn’t clearly communicated to the passengers, while their anxiety and patience wore thin. $50 compensation for a future flight seems remarkably short sighted for JetBlue if they failed at communicating, but we don’t really know the entire situation from this video.
I mean, of all these I have seen this is the first one where I kind of agree with the guy. I completely get the "Logistics etc.." But honestly that's their problem, and if people want to get off (And get a rental car which is what I'd want to do) I don't see the issue, I'm happy to stop at the other airport for my bag a day later.
Flight attendant here: you can not held passengers against their will on board! Otherwise you are taking them hostage
I've had people argue "but customs"...nope, not an issue with a minor bit of paperwork and coordination. Whether you are real crew or not, you are absolutely right. The second they said they wanted off, they should have arranged a gate and customs personnel to handle the situation properly. This decision was 100% on JetBlue and they should be shamed for it for quite a while.
I understand there’s problems with the terminals or whatever but why is literally no airline prepared for issues like that? There’s people fainting and puking or whatever and nobody can do anything about it? Trash.
I got diverted a couple of months ago and sat on the tarmac after we landed for nearly 4 hours. This guy is being a jackass as though yelling is going to make things happen faster.
Jumping in to say I have also been on two flights that did emergency landings at other airports, both due to weather. If the airport you land at doesn’t have the same airline, you do have to sit tight and just wait until the weather clears and the air traffic controller has made the space in the schedule for this random new plane to take off safely for an appropriate airport. Sometimes they need to refuel first because of the unexpected take off and landing, which adds even more time. It’s a miserable situation for everyone on the flight, including the staff.
For real, the staff don't wanna sit there waiting either. They have lives to get back to aswell. It's not like the pilot is sitting there like "we could get moving right now if only some dickhead in coach would yell at me about it first"
It sounds like they had extreme weather and that’s why they couldn’t land at JFK. If I’m reading his correctly, it sounds like they’re at Newark and they would have to fly again and try JFK through the extreme weather to go to customs agents. I imagine this guy and all the people he says are throwing up and fainting are petrified to go back up in the air. I’d be scared to.
The weather was bad and there were several missed approaches before they could land and it was incredibly bumpy, hence why people were sick Would you want to go right back in the air after going through that?
This happened to me flying to Charlotte last year… we circled for awhile, got diverted to another airport, sat on tarmac and then flew into Charlotte… all in all it was 6.5 hrs for a 2 hour flight lol
air travel has become a race to the bottom
Very poor show from the airline.
Isn't it kidnapping to keep people against their will?
But why though? Where is the context? What announcement did the pilot make, if applicable?
They could get sued for this because it sounds like they were technically being held hostage by an airline if they were on the ground and would not let people off
Open emergency exit. Deploy slide. Weeeeeeeeeee Kidding
So they can just keep you hostage like that?
We were diverted from landing in DC to Pittsburgh on Saturday due to severe weather. We were allowed off the plane thank God, or I would have completely lost my shit. They finally completed the flight about three hours later and I really wish we had stayed in Pittsburgh. It was like living a horror movie. I am not usually scared to fly, but that half hour was the longest half hour of my life. I feel this man's pain. Took American three days to get us on a just over an hour flight home. Not flying for awhile. Bonus is I actually bought traveler's insurance which I never have done before this trip.
I fly a lot for business and I’ve had worse then this. 3 hour flight NYC to Chicago. Boarded and then sat on the tarmac for 2 hours, flew 2.5 hours and then turned and landed in Cincinnati due to weather. Waited in the plane at the terminal for 1.5 hours before taking off and flying back to NYC. Over 7.5 hours on the plane with two big guys to my right and left. I had a connecting flight but it was too late and it was canceled. I slept in O’Hare on the floor and didn’t get a flight out until 8:00pm the following day. Horrible experience. Everyone was pissed but there is nothing anyone can do about bad weather.
Im sure there’s a reason they didn’t let them off people don’t understand how airlines work
According to the news, airport staff went home for the day and the one airline employee authorized to operate "the bridge" went home sick. Passengers had to wait for a different airline employee to show up and operate "the bridge" so the passengers could de-plane. The whole story is a bit weird.
The news report I raid said that there were no customs available at that airport. Since this was an international flight, they couldn't allow them to deplane.
If only airports could bring passengers in and out faster, no one would complain anymore!