Two international Delta Air Lines flights en route Atlanta from Mexico City were forced to divert to Montgomery Regional Airport in Alabama on Thursday amid severe weather.
Gatekeepers News reports that about 300 passengers were stranded on the tarmac for several hours due to the diversion and the lack of Customs and Border Protection staffing.
The planes; Delta Air Lines flights 1828 from Cabo San Lucas and 599 from Mexico City were both on their way to Atlanta when flight
According to a Delta spokesperson; flight crews had to divert the planes, Delta Air Lines flights 1828 from Cabo San Lucas and 599 from Mexico City, due to inclement weather, and selected Montgomery, Alabama, for their diversion point.
The planes however landed at Montgomery Regional Airport in Alabama because Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport wasn’t suitable as a diversion airport due to thunderstorms and dangerous conditions in the region.
Because of severe lightning activity, the flight crews exceeded their permitted duty hours, further complicating the situation.
Passengers, totaling 147 on both planes, remained on board until about 5:30 a.m. local time, receiving only water and cookies as refreshments amid frequent updates.
One of the passengers traveling with her boyfriend, Lauren Forbes recounted, “Passengers were given water and cookies as they waited for updates.”
“So everyone’s very ravenous still, and they just kept changing (the plan),” Forbes told WCVB.”
“People would sleep, but then you were woken up by the announcements, and there was a point where people just said, you know, don’t make the announcement if it’s going to be a lie.”
“We had to walk out onto the tarmac, and it was freezing, and it was dark, and there were hundreds of us just standing on there.”
While Delta later arranged a flight from Montgomery to Atlanta for affected customers, some, like Forbes and her boyfriend, had to purchase separate tickets for their final leg home to Boston.
Security personnel managed the crowd until new flight crews arrived and the flights resumed the following morning.
Delta extended its sincere apologies for the inconvenience, promising full refunds to all impacted passengers.
