4 hour Delta-NWA flight delay slowly becomes a day delay

Nearly 24 hours after a Minneapolis bound New York JFK flight was scheduled to land and its passengers are back in Minneapolis.

"This is not the way you run the world's largest airline," said the Delta-Northwest flight 709 pilot.

The flight was scheduled to take off at 11:40 Friday morning and arrive a couple hours later in the Twin Cities. Instead, an hour after it left the gate, the pilot said construction on the runway at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport prevented them from taking off. They could get to Minneapolis, but would not be able to land.

While they continued to wait, a storm arrived and slowed down all air traffic into and out of New York.

"So we sit, and we sit, and we sit," said passenger Cory Sullivan. "And when the weather rolls in we're stuck."

At 3:30, four hours after the scheduled take off time, passengers are allowed back into the JFK terminal. Delta airline said passengers were given food vouchers, but were unable to put them up for the night in a hotel because hotel rooms in the area were booked.

"Passengers were sitting without any information at all," said Sullivan. "They were all scurrying on the phone to rebook their flights. The kicker-you can't rebook your flight if it's not canceled unless you want to pay for one, so we're stuck," he said.

Sullivan said the flight never was canceled. He found a hotel room and spent the night which he paid for himself. In the morning, 40 passengers boarded the same plane which was again delayed.

In a video supplied by Sullivan the pilot told passengers there wasn't any water for the bathrooms. It was never replenished after Friday's delay.

"Again I do apologize, I'm hoping the water trucks can be here in a couple minutes we cannot go without any water in the lavatories," said the pilot.

"It's embarrassing," said Sullivan. "Somebody has to explain to me how this comedy of errors kept going on and on and on."

The flight, scheduled to arrive at 1:40pm Friday for some ended at 10:20am Saturday, for another 100 or so passengers, even later.

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