Going to an alternate is not normal. Yes, some things are taken into consideration. You go to an airport with airline service. But if airplanes are being diverted often your airline is not the only one being diverted. Some things the airport is suppose to provide- such as gate space and in some cases (such as Augusta where fuel is not provided by the airline), people who actually know how to fuel an airplane. A tug won't do crap if there is no place to tow an airplane. I have been in situations a number of times where we were stuck and it had absolutely nothing to do with the airline and everything to do with the incompetence of the airport staff. KATL use to be a mess whenever icing conditions hit. Heck, it was so messed up they had the deice pad drain get clogged and deice fluid leaked into the water system. A week after I told my family to stop drinking the water because it tasted like antifreeze (we lived down stream from KATL), the airport authorities finally came out and admitted that deice fluid had leaked into the water system. I have seen absolute grid lock at KATL where the system was so backed up and taxi ways so blocked it took over an hour just to get pushed back. It's easy for the government... which runs the airports... to blame the airlines for their problems. If we pay a landing fee, a handling fee, a fuel tax, plus any number of other taxes that are charged at the airport the money should go toward servicing the airport and ensuring there are adequate facilities, not used as some cash cow. I work at an airport now where everything is run by the city, including the FBO. It's a class C airport, but you pay a landing fee, a ramp fee, plus high fuel costs. The ramp area is coming apart and I've seen aircraft damaged from the FOD; the FBO is a dump- I've flown in and the toilets don't even work and the wall paper is peeling.
I don't think you can inhibit overwing slide deployment on the 'bus.Could always just open an overwing for some fresh air without the hassle of the slide deployment.
Really? Which one? The airplane diverted from Newark, so it's a fair guess that LGA, ISP and JFK had issues. Heck, you would probably have to go all the way north to Buffalo this past weekend to have found a clear airport of any fair size. I'm willing to bet that all the major airports within 150 miles of KEWR had ground stops and were closed. My wife was at West Point for a football game and the entire area was a mess- mass transit shut down in many places stranding pax. If you are going to say it please list the airport with the conditions and capability where the airplane could have diverted. Again, I don't know that JetBlue is blameless. But many of the issues listed (such as the gates not having power), are airport issues, not airline issues. It is the airport that should have air stairs available in case such things happen since they are the ones providing the service to the airlines... but I'm willing to bet that Hartford did not have any. I can't remember the last time I saw any that actually were operational and had people who knew how to use them. Heck, even at KATL I saw them, but no one from KATL knew how to use them. If there was not a gate for an airplane without stairs, you were pretty much out of luck.
I am neither defending them nor vilifying them. I am saying we should get some of the facts before we demand a witch hunt. We should look at the cities that JetBlue serves and see how they are supporting their airports and how they are using their tax revenues. So American gets a pass? Why is that? Because the Federalis were involved rather than just local government? Where was the support by Hartford in this? I'm sure the city bent over backwards to get JetBlue service to their city. If they do so, they should support that service. Yes, ATC seemed to have been talking to the captain, but did Hartford do anything to help? Again, this just sounds like the beginning of a Monty Python skit- "She's a witch! Burn her!" No facts, just emotion.
