Bad weather forced nearly 300 Delta passengers from Mexico to spend the night on the tarmac — because their planes were diverted to a regional airport in Alabama with no customs to process them.
Nearly 300 Delta passengers on two separate flights from Mexico got to their final destination in Atlanta 15 hours late – after a storm diverted their planes to a regional airport with no customs, forcing them to spend the night on the tarmac.
One plane from Mexico City and another from Cabo San Lucas were both rerouted to Montgomery Regional Airport Thursday night, after storms led to a ground stop at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where they were due to land.
“It was supposed to be three-and-a-half hours, it turned out to be almost 20 hours,” fed-up flier Alex Alvarez told 11Alive. “Bad weather, we understand that. But things just kept piling up and piling up.”
Alvarez said the plane was just going in circles until the captain finally said they were running out of fuel and landed in Montgomery.
But as a regional airport, Montgomery doesn’t have Customs and Border Protection, so the passengers weren’t allowed off the plane after they landed around 10:30 p.m.
The flight fro Cabo San Lucas to Atlanta faced the same problem when it diverted to Montgomery because of the bad weather.
Making matters worse, pilots and crew had reached their maximum allowed hours for the night, so the passengers had to wait it out on the tarmac.
It wasn’t until after 5 a.m. Friday that the passengers were allowed out, as Delta prepared to put them on a flight from Montgomery to Atlanta after the storms cleared.
But even then, they were confined to the gate because they still hadn’t gone through customs.
Delta fed them sandwiches and chips Friday morning, Alvarez said, but only after they had waited for hours.
Delta said it’s reaching out to each customer and offering a full refund.
“We fell short of how we aspire to serve and care for our customers amid thunderstorms in the Southeast US,” a spokesperson said.
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