A travel nightmare for some JetBlue passengers trying to get home to Boston after a holiday vacation in the Turks and Caicos.
In all, their flight was delayed about 24 hours and they had nowhere to go.
They say they were even kicked out of the airport on the island.
“To put people out on the streets like animals was definitely something I will never forget for the rest of my life,” said Marty, who was on that flight from Turks and Caicos to Boston.
Marty says hundreds of JetBlue passengers like himself were told they couldn’t stay at the airport in Turks and Caicos when their flight home to Boston was delayed until the next day.
His children were exhausted after their flight was already delayed several hours on Saturday, and he says there were no hotel rooms available on the island that night.
“Just very unsettling, traumatizing experience you have three young kids all looking to you for an answer, a wife looking at you for an answer, for the first time as a husband and as a father and as a man I had no idea how I was going to shelter my family for a night in a third world country with no cash,” said Marty.
Brett was on this flight too and says the JetBlue employees at the airport forced them to leave when their flight was delayed.
“We just kept saying where do you want us to go? What are we supposed to do? How are you kicking us to the street like dogs in a foreign country?” said Brett.
Eventually, Marty’s travel agent found a small hotel room for his family.
Brett found an Airbnb for about a thousand dollars to squeeze in ten people.
“It was in a horrible, sketchy area, the actual Airbnb itself was okay, but the area was like something out of a horror movie, wild dogs were chasing the cab as we were driving by like very sketchy neighborhood and kids are freaking out like ‘What are we gonna do?’” said Brett.
The next morning when they got back to the airport, they saw dozens of cots had been brought in for the passengers who couldn’t find a place to stay.
Their new flight was also delayed another four hours.
Jet Blue sent Boston 25 News the following statement:
“On Saturday, December 28, JetBlue flight 754, with scheduled service from Turks and Caicos to Boston, experienced a significant delay after the inbound aircraft had to divert to Fort Lauderdale, due to heavy Air Traffic Control (ATC) congestion and extended holding in the area. The flight was delayed until the following day, safely arriving in Turks and Caicos to pick up our customers before completing its flight to Boston.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this delay caused and understand this was a frustrating situation. While the delay was created by circumstances beyond JetBlue’s control, we understand the impact this disruption had on our customers’ plans. Given that, we’ve provided instructions for affected customers to submit reimbursement requests for eligible out-of-pocket expenses in line with our Customer Service Plan. Additionally, as a gesture of goodwill, we’ve issued $200 in travel credit for future JetBlue flights.”
“This was far beyond a delay, this was sending people to the streets in a third-world country in the wee hours of the night and asking them to fend for themselves with no solutions,” said Marty.
Many of these passengers hope airlines find a better solution to provide shelter for customers during significant overnight delays.
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