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Air passengers stranded for hours after glitch

Friday, June 08, 2007

(New York - WABC, June 8, 2007) (WABC) -- Thousands of air passengers are coping with delays and cancellations after a computer failure in the nation's air-traffic control system caused major flight delays along the East Coast Friday.

While the computer problem was fixed shortly before 11 a.m., its impact lingered on into the evening, especially at Tri-State airports where computer systems took two extra hours to get back online, according to the FAA.

As of late Friday night, delays are as follows:

LaGuardia - 2 hours and 45 minutes

Kennedy - 2 hours and 46 minutes

Newark - 4 hours and 30 minutes

Witnesses said the scene at JFK was chaotic Friday evening, with the line from the terminal's bar stretching for 50 feet as passengers dealt with delays that officials said were averaging more than 2 1/2 hours for arriving flights.

At LaGuardia Airport, the situation was even worse, with arriving flights running nearly four hours behind on average. Backups were so bad, air-traffic controllers temporarily stopped inbound flights from taking off in other parts of the country to keep the skies over Queens from filling with too many planes, said FAA spokesman Jim Peters.

Eyewitness News reporter Jeff Pegues talked to travelers at LaGuardia who were forced to make other plans as the system came back up.

"Flight 759 was canceled because the incoming flight was canceled ... the FAA canceled it ... American Airlines will do nothing for us, we've got to find a hotel, we don't even know where a hotel is!" one passenger told us.

For travelers trying to get home, the computer problem and its aftermath created frustrating uncertainty.

"This is crazy right now and no one is really giving information about what's going on," another passenger said.

Senator Chuck Schumer urged the FAA on Friday night to invest in improvements and called for an internal agency investigation of air-traffic control technology.

"When it comes to these computer systems, they're way behind schedule. ... The technology is there to make them much better," Schumer said.

An FAA spokesman did not immediately return calls seeking comment following Schumer's comments.

Officials say Friday evenings are among the busiest, most congested and most delay-plagued times of the week at the region's airports. Peters said the problems were expected to continue late into the evening.

Bryan Baldwin, a spokesman for JetBlue, said the problem was likely to continue into the night. JetBlue, which has a hub at JFK, experienced delays on five out of its 16 daily flights at LaGuardia, he said.

"The New York metro area is the most congested air space in the country. ... When there's any type of interruption to the air traffic system, it's going to affect the most congested areas the most," Baldwin said.

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