It had to happen sooner or later: an airline called police to calm a planeload of angry passengers.
The latest in a string of extended tarmac delays exploded into a confrontation between passengers and crew when Continental Flight 1669Y from Caracas, Venezuela to Newark, NJ was diverted to Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) by severe thunderstorms July 29.
It then sat for four-and-a-half more hours exceeding the scheduled flight time.
Claiming they were left without food, water, toilet paper, or adequate explanation of their ordeal, passengers burst into spontaneous clapping prompting a flight attendant to threaten them with arrest. It also prompted the pilot to ask for help in order to prevent a potential riot.
Police came aboard the plane and remained with the passengers after they were taken into the terminal. They were not allowed to disperse, according to airport authorities, because they were international passengers who had yet to clear U.S. Customs.
By the time they landed in Newark at 10 p.m., they had been on the plane for nearly 12 hours.
The plane spent more time on the tarmac than any of the other 20 planes diverted to BWI that day but neither airline nor airport officials had explanations acceptable to the passengers.
Seventy-two of the passengers signed a letter of protest to Continental. That carrier has since offered them compensation.
Although flights diverted from their destination airports do not count as delays, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation (DOT) reported three-dozen planes were stranded on airport tarmacs for at least five hours in 2006. The situation got worse when ice storms snarled air traffic in the northeast on Feb. 14 and Mar. 16 of this year.
The DOT reported nearly one-third of all June 2007 flights were delayed and said the first half of this year was the worst since 1995, the first year such data was reported.
Kate Hanni, stranded for hours on an American Airlines flight in Texas last year, has been urging Congress to enact a Passengers Bill of Rights so that tarmac strandings can be limited by law. Her group, Coalition for Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, operates the website www.flyersrights.com.
