passenger got off the plane, she said going through customs was a breeze. getting her baggage was not. it took her at least two hours to get her luggage before she was able to move on. and we heard similar stories. the problem is this. the airport says it remains up to the airlines to make sure before they take off from wherever they may be that they have to make sure that there is gate space available at jfk. obviously, they said despite the fact that they were told that time and again, apparently the warnings did not always work. but things do appear to be slowly getting back on track now, though it will take several days, they say, to make up for the backlog. susan candiotti reporting from jfk airport in new york. can t help but feel for those people in that terminal. susan, thank you. we re all over this emergency in the northeast all day today. before i move on, let me show you real leadership in action. this is the kind of action i m talking about. this is not political. the bl
talking about flights on the tarmac for 6, 7, 8, 9 hours? that s a good question. the problem two nights ago should have sent a clear signal to check ahead before they depart their point of origin to make sure there is gate space available for them and apparently none of these airlines did that. steve, do that do that under normal circumstances? is this a regular procedure where before you take off from charles de gaulle you check to see if you re going to have a gate the jfk or is that always as assumed under normal circumstances and this is the protocol when the weather is bad? i think understand normal circumstances people do it entirely by rote. they talk off from point a and get to point b, and assume the gate is available and in normal circumstances it is available. however, you have a blizzard of this magnitude and extraordinary event of this magnitude, things
tarmac for hours before they were able to get into open gates. why is this happening? a lot of finger pointing going on and explanations including the port authority is explaining that they keep telling the airlines that they are not supposed to take off from the point of origin, wherever they are leaving from, unless they are assured and have confirmed gate space at jfk. they say we keep telling them that but apparently it s not working. they are talking to the airlines and asking them to get the clearance, have the ash churns of a gate before they come in. nevertheless, we are hearing at this hour that many of the flights are able to land with minimal or no delay at all here at jfk at least a some of the termin terminals. we are making calls to make sure that s the case everywhere. there is one additional runway
but cafe pacific isn t buying it, its spokesperson says the airline s intention was to say, getting to new york as quickly as possible and we anticipated to have gate space available. so if it s not the airport s fault, who is it? try u.s. customs, noting each of the stranded planes was an international flight, the port authority suggests on the midnight shift there may have been too few officers on duty to clear the passengers through customs. of course a customs spokesperson insists that it wasn t them. a spokesperson saying at no point were customs officials sent home, he said, for flights arriving after midnight there is usually one terminal available, which is always staffed with customs officers. whatever the cause, what about that airline passenger bill of rights that s supposed to limit how much time passengers can sit on a tarmac? well, it turns out there are exceptions. the rules don t apply if there are safety or security reasons passengers should stay on the plane.
on sunday. and that s because according to the airport, the airlines did not call ahead and make sure that gate space was available before they took off from their point of origin. when they landed here you know what happened. we spoke with one woman who got off a mexico flight who said that the flight here was just fine, food drink movies. but when they landed that s when the problem started. they don t say the truth. they say okay, we have the gate.