JetBlue passengers sleep on cots at Logan Airport after flights delayed, canceled

JetBlue passengers found themselves sleeping on cots at Logan Airport on Monday night after delays led to cancellations. It comes after thousands of flight cancellations from the airline last week. The pilot union is calling it a systemic issue.

"I had a blanket, but who can sleep on a cot in the middle of the airport?" said Nicole Spittell.

She was talking to WBZ-TV from Las Vegas, while she was traversing the airport. Her flight from Boston to Las Vegas on JetBlue was delayed multiple times and then canceled.

Next available flight in 5 days

"All of a sudden boom. You see a mad dash, all of these people are heading toward the ticket counter, and on my phone I get the message your flight has been canceled," said Spittell.

She says they could see the plane at the gate, and they were told numerous times the airline was waiting on a final crew member.

"I called customer service. I didn't get a call back until nine hours later," said Spittell, adding that the wait at the ticket counter was an hour.

Spittell says the airline booked them on the next available flight, but it wasn't until Saturday. She said the airline offered $250 a night reimbursement for a hotel, but only if they paid up front for the cost for all five nights.

"Nobody has an extra $2,000 to $3,000 laying around to stay on vacation for that many nights," said Spittell.

Instead, she ended up on a cot surrounded by other passengers. Eventually she paid for another flight on Delta to get home.

"We saw an elderly couple helping each other into the cots. It was heartbreaking," Spittell said.

Pilot union on JetBlue issues

JetBlue says the flight was canceled after the crew reached their daily service time limits. They blamed this on delays and cancellations stemming from federal air traffic control staffing issues and isolated weather problems. When the airline canceled roughly 1,000 flights last week, the JetBlue pilot union told WBZ-TV there are systemic issues within the airline.

"Unfortunately, the airline's operations center is taking an unacceptably long amount of time, hours and hours, to process schedule changes following these cancellations," said Wayne Scales, of the Air Line Pilots Association. "For our customers, this means that pilots are standing by, waiting for schedule changes. Their flights are getting delayed longer and longer without staffing."

Staffing issues aren't exclusive to JetBlue. CBS aviation expert Peter Greenberg says this is a common issue for any airline if they don't plan properly.

"Staffing issues always happen in the last five days of any month where they can't get crew members who have exceeded their time limits or flown their basic minimums and don't want to fly anymore," said Greenberg.

When can flights be reimbursed?

Cancellation issues continued on Tuesday, impacting Stacey Wood.

"We waited and were told over and over that the flight was being delayed first because of security issues, then mechanical issues," said Wood.

She says JetBlue couldn't rebook her and her husband's flight to San Diego for five or six days out. They canceled and asked for their money back.

"We just had a grandson. We were excited to go see him, and we aren't going to go see him. We don't know when," said Wood.

Because their problem was not weather related, the Woods were reimbursed. If you believe your flight was canceled for reasons other than weather, Greenberg says you will need to prove it. He suggests using apps like Flightradar 24 and Flighty, which will tell you where your aircraft is and why it's not getting there.

The Gonzalez boys got stuck for two hours in Buffalo after competing in a national Jiu-Jitsu tournament in Florida.

"Went to Orlando for a Jiu-Jitsu tournament called Pan Kids, it's the biggest tournament in the world for kids," said Jace Gonzalez.

His brother Jovani took home a gold medal, submitting four kids in the tournament, but he and his brother were left to grapple with what to do at the airport for hours.

"The airport feels like it's kind of boring, and then when we are at home we get to just swim and do stuff and play outside," said Jovani Gonzalez.