A series of viral TikToks posted by Wendy Loyola (@wm_beauty) chronicles a “JetBlue horror story” of being stuck at the airport for at least 48 hours trying to get home on Feb. 28.
In the first TikTok, posted on Monday, Loyola is shown in the airport in Las Vegas with other passengers on her flight slated to go to Newark. According to the text overlay, “[JetBlue] refuse[s] to help us! We are going on our second night on the airport!!!”
@wm_beautylab @JetBlue @jetBlue @News5 @Newsplus Official @CNN @The New York Times #jetblueflight956 ♬ original sound – Wendy Michelle
“We’re here in Vegas this is flight from JetBlue 956 and we’re stuck here,” she says. “We’ve been stuck here for a whole day and now they’re telling us we’re not going to be able to fly out. I’m going to put it on TikTok. I need JetBlue to really pay attention because unless we do this, they’re not going to pay attention to anything. We have kids, we have jobs, and this is ridiculous. We’re all waiting.”
“And we can’t get our bags,” says another woman. “400 bags are in a pile.”
In the clip, Loyola says that JetBlue offered the passengers a $200 voucher. “We don’t care about the money, we’re just trying to get home,” says Loyola. “But clearly they don’t care about us.”
As of Tuesday, the TikTok has over 121,400 views.
Another TikTok, which has received over 470,000 views, shows an angry crowd talking to JetBlue desk staff. You can hear the phrase, “timed out,” which likely refers to a law that aims to protect flight crews, especially pilots, from fatigue. It set a limit on the amount of hours flight crews can work, going down from 16 to between nine and 14 hours. Pilots must also get a minimum of 10 hours of sleep between shifts. If a flight is already delayed, a pilot could be told they can’t fly the plane, depending on what their schedule has been like.
In the text overlay of this TikTok, Loyola writes: “We have been stuck in the airport for the second day now…. No accurate updates! People have been sleeping in the floor! And we are yet to know when we will be home!”
@wm_beautylab @jetblue @news5everywhere @cnn @BuzzFeed News ♬ original sound – Wendy Michelle
In a third TikTok, Loyola says her flight and three others have been stuck in the airport. “Literally, JetBlue is selling you these tickets when they don’t have a crew and pilots, and if that’s the case, you should not be taking people’s money,” she says. “We have kids sleeping on the floor. We cannot get any hotel rooms. We have not been able to buy absolutely anything. And the pilots refuse to fly. The plane’s here, we’re here. I’m in Vegas in the airport stuck.”
On Monday, Loyola says she finally returned home. She says there was no weather or airplane issues. “The issue here was the fact that the pilots didn’t want to fly,” she says. “It wasn’t because they were tired or had been flying for hours. They were going on strike with their union, which I totally understand. You want better benefits, no problem.”
Loyola says in the video that “the issue is JetBlue” and continued to blame corporate for selling tickets while short-staffed.
“I get it, there’s a shortage,” she said. “But it is not fair to children who are stuck in an airport, for the elderly who are literally stuck there on wheelchairs. It’s nighttime, everything’s closed. We couldn’t buy water, we couldn’t buy food.”
One person claiming to work for the airline said “Jetblue pilot here. We are not on or ever been on strike. Short staffed. Yes.” The Daily Dot could not find reports of a recent JetBlue pilot strike.
In response to this, Loyola said, “That’s is [sic] what your own JetBlue crew told us. I guess we will never know the truth. However, the pilots for our flights had half of their hours left.”
She says there was a marathon during the time they were stuck in Las Vegas and the only hotel rooms that were available were too expensive to be comped. The Daily Dot found that there was a half marathon scheduled around the same time as Loyola’s video.
Loyola also says the customer service staff kept telling the passengers they were going to leave soon and to stay in the airport. She says that social media attention was the only way to get JetBlue’s attention and that they reached out to her via direct message to say she had a flight home soon.
In the comments, some people said there was “no strike and this is an issue with all airlines! You’re not aware of what happens behind the scenes.”
“The whole industry is short staffed….not just JetBlue unfortunately,” another TikToker wrote.
Another TikToker commented, “tickets are sold way ahead of time so there’s no way and predicting the future on flights.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Loyola via email and Instagram direct message, and JetBlue via email.
Today’s top stories
| ‘Fill her up’: Bartender gives woman a glass of water when the man she’s with orders tequila shot |
| ‘I don’t think my store has even sold one’: Whataburger employees take picture with first customer who bought a burger box |
| ‘It was a template used by anyone in the company’: Travel agent’s ‘condescending’ out-of-office email reply sparks debate |
| Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online. |
