At least 4 jets stranded for hours, airlines may be fined

According to CBS news last night, this was more on the Airport rather than the Airlines. There was even a com on there between one of the pilots and the tower asking for help. BUT, the bigger problem in the whole thing is the Airlines and PAX flying into that mess to commence with. It ain't like folks didn't know it was coming. In addition, Hartford and customs sent a lot of folks home. Why not just close the Airport. Obviously the people weren't there to operate it properly,

Do you think airport/city management would be more responsive if they were subject to the same maximum fines (about $24K) the airlines are? Another suggestion is don't let the decision makers hide behind the vagueness of airport/airline X kept passengers on a plane for 7 hours. Announce by name the person who made the decision, then see if things improve.

Definitely ridiculous!!! If the FAA are going to divert planes, send them where the Wx is manageable both for ground-crew, airline personnel, and passengers. These kind of incidents should never happen. The other question is, how much fuel was on board the a/c so the pilot could fly elsewhere to avoid these situations. What about the airline folks that work at operations, what did they advise the pilot to do that contributed to his/her decision to divert to these HELLISH bad Wx airports... They are many factors that contributed to this happenings; however, the blaming-game is not what we are looking to do, but to avoid PAX to have to experience these kind of ordeals in the near future.

Who decided to divert to BDL? Airline, ATC, or Pilots? Do airlines have to divert to an airport that they have gates at? It seems really stupid to divert to an airport with bad weather - I thought that was the whole idea of a weather diversion; to go someplace where the weather is better.

JetBlue should be fined to the fullest extent of the law. This is not the first time this situation has happened and they are airline that is responsible for creating the fine regulation. If anyone should have been trained to avoid this situation or know what to do, it should have been JetBlue. They deserve to pay the fine just on the basis of their own stupidity. They are a disgrace to the entire airline industry and just illustrates the extent of the moronic behavior of the airlines to the flying public.

How did getting off an airplane get to be such a big deal?

First using the engines you get the plane as close to the terminal as possible.

If the plane has a back stairs, just lower the back stairs and get off, walk across the tarmack into the terminal. Whatever conditions are in the terminal they are always better than on the plane. There is enough "help" on the airplane to guide the group to the terminal.

I,like most, have taken many flights without "Jetways" where the flight began and ended with a walk across the tarmack, often in rain & snow.

If the plane does not have back stairs every plane has two or more slides. Open a slide, any passengers that want to slide out should be given that option.

I had a professor who suggested that if you wanted to get an organization to "engage" you used of a variation on, "when you call the gas company always end the call with, AND WE SMELL GAS!"

When there is a chance of a belly landing all sorts of equipment is called out and belly landing or not the passengers are quickly picked up and hauled back to the terminal. A suggestion of landing gear problems on approach would bring out the necessary equipment to get the passengers off. And the the equipment would be out on the field ready to respond to such as a belly landing instead of back in the garage getting the engines started.

This is one of those things that the airlines could do but they have a bad case of "I don't want to". If the air field is objecting all the captain has to say is "I am letting down the back stairs/releasing the slides -- deal with it!"

Not only should the airlines and the airport management pay fines, but those in position of authority shouds be FIRED!

I don't understand how fining either airline would be fair. This was a system failure, compounded by the weather.

Storm in progress. Why were these flights not cancelled at their origin? Even I could tell from watching the Weather Channel, that going from NYC to BDL was going from the frying into the fire. The forecast was for 12+ in CT, West. MA. Should have diverted to SYR, ROC, BUF.