New rule on tarmac delays will come too late to help Virgin America fliers stranded in NY

New delay rule comes too late for Virgin fliers

NEW YORK — A new federal rule that is supposed to prevent travelers from being stranded on airport tarmacs will be implemented too late to help Virgin America passengers marooned for 4½ hours at a little-used New York airport.

Virgin America Flight 404 was forced to land at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday after fierce winds made it impossible to land in New York City. The jet originated in Los Angeles and was bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Once on the ground, the pilot and crew quickly found themselves in a pickle while they waited for permission to get back in the air.

Virgin doesn’t normally operate out of Stewart, meaning it had no staff to bring the passengers food, unload their bags, or arrange ground transportation for the 90-mile drive to Kennedy.

Just getting people off the plane was a problem, airline spokeswoman Abby Lunardini said.

“There was nowhere for us to go to get to a gate,” she said. The airline doesn’t rent gates at Stewart and didn’t seek immediate help from competitors who do.

As the hours ticked by, the airline periodically asked the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, to give small groups of passengers rides to the terminal, but fliers were told that if they left they couldn’t return.

There was also confusion about who was allowed to go and who had to stay aboard, said passenger David Martin, the CEO of a social networking site called Kontain, who posted live video updates on the ordeal as the episode unfolded.

“We felt like we were stuck out there on the moon,” he said.

Martin said he had fun anyway during the delay, mostly because he happened to be sitting next to “Dancing With the Stars” judge Carrie Ann Inaba.

“We had a fantastic time,” he said. “I’m serious. We were just giggling and laughing. We talked abut the movie ‘Alive’ and how we’d have to eat each other to survive.”

Still, one passenger had a panic attack, he said. Food ran short, and the crew resorted to rationing handfuls of potato chips and nuts. Some crew members snapped at passengers, Martin said.

A new Department of Transportation rule scheduled to go into effect in late April could mean fines of up to $27,500 per passenger if a plane is stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours, but it only applies if fliers aren’t given the opportunity to disembark.

There are also exceptions for instances in which returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.

There is no fine for airlines that deplane passengers and then reboard them later when the weather clears.

It is unclear whether the situation at Stewart, in which some passengers got off, but others did not, would have qualified as a violation.

The Department of Transportation said it is investigating.

Of the 126 passengers on the plane, 20 opted to head for the terminal courtesy of Port Authority vehicles. Many hailed a taxi and were home in short order.

“Obviously, those people made the right decision,” Lunardini said.

The rest remained aboard until about 10 p.m., when a ground crew from JetBlue, which flies regularly out of Stewart, came aboard, announced that the flight had been canceled and said they were there to arrange bus transportation to Kennedy.

A JetBlue spokeswoman said the airline was responding to a call from the Virgin America crew requesting assistance. Its workers also unloaded the passengers’ bags.

Virgin America CEO David Cush phoned some passengers Sunday night, including Inaba and Martin, to apologize and all passengers have been offered refunds and credits toward a future flight, Lunardini said.

“Certainly we learned some lessons,” she said

Inaba posted on her Twitter page that the apology and refund had restored her faith in the airline.

The flight was one of eight diverted to Stewart because of bad weather.