JetBlue cancels Portland flights Airline seeks to recover from storm

JetBlue called off almost a quarter of its flights for today but hoped that would be the last round of cancellations as it struggles to recover from the snowstorm that saw some travelers sitting on grounded planes for hours.

On Saturday it had canceled flights in and out of Portland and 10 other destinations during the weekend

The airline had scheduled 600 flights for President’s Day, more than the 550 to 575 flights it has on a normal Monday, but 139 of them were canceled, JetBlue announced.

The latest cancellations were needed to make sure all flight crews had gotten the legally mandated amount of rest before returning to service, JetBlue Airways Corp. spokesman Sebastian White said Sunday.

“Canceling one more day’s operations will really help reset our airline,” White said Sunday.

All JetBlue flights were canceled today, as they were Saturday and Sunday, in and out of 11 airports: Richmond, Va.; Pittsburgh; Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Austin and Houston, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Nashville; Portland, Maine; and Bermuda.

In Maine, the problems came at the start of school vacation week, a popular time for people to try to get away.

Among those desperate to rebook flights were Sean Smith of Lewiston and 10 of his relatives trying to make it to New Orleans for a cruise.

“I’m bummed,” Smith told the Portland Press Herald on Saturday as he sat slumped on stairs hours after arriving at the airport.

Their inability to get to New Orleans meant the probable loss of $20,000 in cruise ship tickets because they forfeited insurance by flying JetBlue instead of using the cruise line’s air travel package, they said.

The cancellations followed hundreds of other canceled and delayed flights since Wednesday, when the snow and ice storm that had plowed across the Midwest struck the Northeast, grounding the company’s airliners at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

White said JetBlue has been using several methods in efforts to reduce the backlog of passengers stalled by the storm, including charter flights, adding flights in certain regions, rebooking passengers who had some travel flexibility to later dates, and booking seats on other airlines.

He said the airline attempted to warn passengers of the latest cancellations by telephone and e-mail.

The disruptions also meant JetBlue faced mountains of luggage checked by would-be travelers. Some passengers complained that after their flights were canceled, no one could find their bags.

White said the airline had teams out in the New York City area on Sunday delivering luggage to customers.