JetBlue Headaches Continue After Storm
Saturday And Sunday Flights Canceled In 11 Airports Following Winter Storm Chaos
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Play CBS Video Video JetBlue Still Struggling JetBlue left passengers stranded on the runway during Wednesday's storm, which could lead to passing an air passengers bill of rights. As Bob Orr reports, the airline is still not up to speed.
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Video Trapped On The Tarmac Airlines have come under fire for the way they handled stranded passengers after weather problems grounded some 200 flights. Kate Hanni was one of those travelers, and she speaks with Julie Chen.
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Video Trapped On The Runway JetBlue passengers filled New York's JFK International Airport on Feb 14., as half of the airline's 550 flights were canceled. Andrew Kirtzman of WCBS-TV reports.
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JetBlue planes wait at terminal gates at JFK Airport in New York, Friday, Feb. 16, 2007. All Saturday and Sunday flights on JetBlue were canceled in and out of 11 airports. (AP Photos/Bebeto Matthews)
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In this photo taken with a cell phone by a passenger, people aboard JetBlue Flight 751 to Cancun walk around the cabin while waiting to take off from JFK, Feb. 14, 2007. (AP)
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A JetBlue plane sits on the tarmac at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, Feb. 14, 2007. The low-cost carrier had to cancel about half of its domestic flights due to winter weather. (WCBS)
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News Tools Were You There? Send us YOUR digital photos or video from delayed JetBlue flights.
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Interactive Industry Turbulence See how the country's top airlines are faring
"JetBlue is taking this aggressive, unprecedented action to end rolling delays and cancellations, and to operate a new schedule reliably," the New York-based carrier said in a statement posted on its Web site.
All Saturday and Sunday 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.
As of 6 p.m., about 170 flights had been called off, out of about 600 scheduled for the weekend.
The decision to dramatically reduce operations followed days of chaos at the airline's terminals, triggered by a Wednesday snow and ice storm that grounded jets at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
As the weekend began the airline was still having trouble getting flight crews in place. Passengers grew increasingly irate.
"There's screaming matches and fights going on between the passengers and the workers," one customer, Amanda MacKenzie, 21, said at JFK on Friday.
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 cancellations. 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.
JetBlue Airways Corp. spokeswoman Alison Eshelman said the airline hoped to put a stop to the angry confrontations by telling passengers far in advance that their plane wouldn't be flying.
No flights have been canceled yet on Monday.
"And obviously, the focus is not to cancel them," Eshelman said.
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.
Part of JetBlue's strategy in the new round of cancellations has been to ground most of its smaller Embraer 190 jets and transfer crews to its larger Airbus A320s.
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