Dozens of Long Islanders arrived at Islip’s MacArthur Airport in a charter bus after their Southwest flights were delayed multiple times and then canceled.
The travelers say they decided to pay thousands of dollars for a bus after a 36-hour headache dealing with the airline.
“We were all just stuck,” one of the travelers said. “We didn’t know what to do, but we came through like New Yorkers.”
They say they were in Baltimore when Southwest kept saying there would be a half-hour delay before it canceled the flight completely after midnight.
The cancellation comes as Southwest has been forced to cancel nearly 2,400 flights in just over three days.
In a statement, the airline said in part: “As we complete efforts to stabilize our network, Southwest expects a more normal operation on Tuesday with approximately 90 system-wide cancellations out of the airline’s almost 3,300 flights scheduled for the day.”
The Long Islanders who arrived home Tuesday say Southwest was never honest with them and they don’t plan to fly with the airline anytime soon.
“Don’t lead us along and then dump us at the end,” one person said.
The 31 people who were stranded say they are all now lifelong friends.
Southwest has continued to say that bad weather and air traffic control issues in Florida Friday triggered cascading failures, which caused planes and pilots to be trapped out of position for their next flights.