Delta flight diversion leaves passengers without food or water for hours
Passengers were left more or less in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean Friday into Saturday when a Delta Air Lines flight from Accra, Ghana, to New York was forced to divert to Lajes Airport on Terceira Island in the Azores.
Unfortunately for the passengers aboard, Lajes is not an airport Delta usually serves, which meant the airline struggled to provide resources including food and water to the passengers, and had no staff on the ground to assist until a relief plane flew in later.
“Delta flight 157 from Accra to New York-JFK diverted to Lajes Airport following a mechanical issue with a backup oxygen system. The crew descended to a lower altitude out of an abundance of caution during the diversion and the aircraft landed safely,” Drake Castaneda, a Delta spokesperson, told USA TODAY in a statement. “An alternate aircraft was dispatched from Lisbon to help our customers more quickly get to their final destinations while the original aircraft was repaired by maintenance technicians. We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travels.”
Delta clarified that the backup oxygen system was only for the air supply in the cockpit, but the oxygen supply remained normal throughout the flight. Unfortunately, regulations require the part that malfunctioned to be working properly on all planes, and when it breaks, pilots must immediately divert to the nearest safe airport.
Social media posts show frustrated passengers waiting in the airport with little information, and Castaneda said without Delta staff on hand, the airline was limited in what it could do for passengers initially.
The airline also noted that the original crew needed to go to a hotel quickly for their mandatory rest period, which further limited the airline’s footprint in an airport that it does not usually serve.
Delta said all passengers were fully refunded for their flights and issued additional credits.
To make matters more frustrating for those affected, the Northeast was experiencing severe weather once their flight did make it to New York, which meant many Delta staffers at JFK were already overwhelmed with handling other rebookings.
Passengers on the flight from Ghana also had to wait at least a day to receive their bags, because luggage was left on the original plane as a way to minimize the relief crew’s time on the ground. According to Delta, there was only about an hour leeway for the replacement crew before their duty clock ran out and they, too, would have been required to take a rest period.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com
