LAX to JFK flight takes 16 hours

Virgin America flight 404, bound from LAX to JFK, left as scheduled at 7am Saturday morning, but the passengers would not reach their destination until 3am the next day. The NY Post reports:

But because of 60-mph winds [in New York], the plane was forced to circle JFK until it was finally diverted to Stewart Airport in Newburgh -- 90 miles north -- for a 5:15 p.m. landing.

There, the plane remained on the tarmac until close to midnight, passengers say. The airline said the wait was more like 4½ hours.


Tensions flared as the stranded passengers were forced to ration, each was given four Pringles and a half-cup of water. One passenger was escorted off of the plane by police due to a panic attack.

After midnight, rival airline Jetblue, who happen to have facilities at Stewart Airport, finally arranged for buses to take the passengers on the 2 hour bus ride to JFK, where they arrived around 3am.

I had a similar experience on Saturday, albeit a 10 hour journey from New Orleans to JFK. We landed at BDL and JetBlue told us that they were not able to unload our aircraft because they did not have ground crew but some four hours later when we were finally taken to a spare gate they had found a crew to unload the baggage. JetBlue finally organized bus travel to JFK using a local Connecticut company but it seemed like it took them forever to figure out what they were going to do. Kudos to JetBlue for helping out Virgin America.

VA refunded everyones full fare and gave vouchers.

Seriously, it's not that hard to get buses, VX.

I'm not a fan of the new three hour tarmac rule since airlines say they are going to cancel flights to avoid fines but it is the poor preparedness of airlines like VX (as well as others in the past) during extreme weather situations which resulted in the new rules in the first place.

that sucks. But the weather was horrible saturday. The fact that they made it to JFK was a feat. If you were able to land i take my hat off to you. Especally cathay. They landed in 50+ mph wind. I was really impressed with those pilots. They landed a 773 in that wind. Ok they had to go around once cause they missed the mark but the next go it was as if it was a normal day.

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Originally Posted by NLovis

that sucks. But the weather was horrible saturday. The fact that they made it to JFK was a feat.

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Many other flights were diverted but so far we have not heard any other horror stories. The AF A380 diverted to BOS and the pax and crew were presumably put up in hotels and flown to JFK the following day. Two AA LAX-JFK bound flights were diverted to IAD and flew back to JFK the next day as well. VX really dropped the ball and were not prepared for weather diversions.

**** happens. just hope it doesnt happen to you :borat: