Six months ago, ice storms on Valentine's Day walloped airlines, especially JetBlue, at the area airports. WABC 7 got a hold of some tapes between air traffic controllers and pilots on that crazy day where some flights were lingering on runways for more than seven hours, even up to 13 hours. Here are two of our favorite conversations:
Air Traffic Control 1: "These [flights] were there before I got here. You got JetBlue 80, 1048, 620, 1060 and 850. They've been there with passengers for about 4,5, 6 hours."
Air Traffic Control 2: "Jeez.".........................
Air Traffic Control: "Did you run out of fuel yet?"
Pilot: "Luckily we only have 50 people on board. I was just going to call Domino's."
Air Traffic Control: "Your company just cancelled one to New Orleans and waited at de-ice station for 5 hours."
Pilot: "What a day."
Domino's? We wonder what kind of tips do iced-in airline pilots give delivery people.
The crazy February delays (Jet Blue canceled hundreds of flights) led the NY State Legislature to create an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights. Recently, some reports showed how flights have had near misses at LaGuardia, which some blame on the FAA's poor staffing of air traffic controllers.
Photograph of passengers waiting for flights to leave JFK during a July thunderstorm by hmmlargeart on Flickr
