Passengers from Mexico stranded on Alabama tarmac for seven hours after diversion to airport with no customs workers | EUROtoday

Two Delta Air Lines flights from Mexico heading to Boston on Thursday had been pressured to divert to Alabama, the place they had been caught on the tarmac for hours attributable to a customs difficulty.

Flight DL 1828 from Los Cabos International Airport departed at 5:17 p.m., whereas flight DL 599 from Mexico City took off practically an hour later.

The two flights had been scheduled to cease in Atlanta — Delta’s hub and headquarters — earlier than persevering with on to Boston. But they had been pressured to divert to Montgomery, Alabama, attributable to unhealthy climate, in line with Boston 25.

Both flights landed on the airport in Montgomery round 10:30 p.m. native time, a Delta spokesperson instructed the community.

Since they had been coming from a global level of origin, passengers had been pressured to take a seat on the tarmac for hours, unable to depart the airplane attributable to a scarcity of Customs and Border Protection workers on the airport.

At round 5 a.m., after seven hours on the tarmac in Montgomery with solely cookies and water, passengers had been permitted to disembark in teams of 20.

Passenger Lauren Forbes instructed Boston 25: “They had roped off a square area and both flights were in there. If you needed to use a restroom, there was a police officer in front of the restroom.”

They waited for an additional eight hours earlier than taking off for Atlanta.

Forbes and her boyfriend then needed to rebook a connecting flight to Boston on their very own.

“Look at the bags under my eyes from not sleeping,” she mentioned on arrival at Logan Airport after a 25-hour journey. “I just want to sleep and go home to my dog. Then, I go to work in the morning.”

Forbes mentioned Delta has already reached out to her about reimbursement, however she added: “I think this is just an eye opener for maybe more substantial protocols in place.”

Delta mentioned the airplane doorways remained open whereas passengers waited and defined that the lightning within the space pressured them to carry the flights in Montgomery longer than anticipated, as flight crews had exceeded permitted working hours.

“We sincerely apologize to our customers for this experience,” a Delta Air Lines spokesperson mentioned in an announcement. “We fell short of how we aspire to serve and care for our customers amid thunderstorms in the Southeast U.S. Thursday evening. We are reaching out to each customer with a full refund of their booking.”

The airline confirmed that at 5:15 a.m. and 5:23 a.m., some passengers had been allowed to disembark and go into the airport, however needed to keep in a sure space.

Alabama’s Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, which might have had acceptable buyer staffing, was not appropriate as a diversion airport as a result of it was additionally experiencing extreme thunderstorms.