JetBlue Extends Olive Branch, Will Refund Passengers Trapped for 8 Hours

JetBlue is extending a much-deserved olive branch to the 123 passengers who were trapped on a tarmac in Hartford, Conn., for almost eight hours on Oct. 29.

The airline announced that it has begun to refund the passengers on JetBlue Flight 504 as well as those on the four other planes stuck on the tarmac of Bradley International Airport.

Yes, we started issuing refunds, but it will take us a while to get everyone, said Allison Croyle, a spokeswoman for JetBlue.

The passengers were given a letter on Saturday stating that they should receive a full refund plus a roundtrip voucher for future trips.

A customer service representative is also supposed to call each individual passenger to apologize.

Flight 504 was bound for Newark, New Jersey, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but diverted due to the nor'easter that trampled states from Maine to Maryland.

Chief Operating Officer of JetBlue Rob Maruster posted a video to YouTube apologizing for the confluence of events that took place on Saturday.

He said that, though safety was never compromised, let's face it, you count on us at JetBlue for a lot more -- and we promise a lot more -- and we know we let some of you down over the course of this weekend and for that we are truly sorry.

[JetBlue] will fully participate with the Department of Transportation and cooperating with their investigation into events over the weekend, and we're also going to conduct an internal evaluation so that we can learn from this event because at the end of the day, you deserve better -- and we expect better from our crew members and our operation.

Passengers were stranded for almost eight hours, as food and drinks ran out and toilets clogged.

Some individuals had medical issues and babies were crying.

I got a problem here on the airplane. I'm going to need to have the cops onboard, a crew member reported to the tower in a conversation posted on LiveATC.net, a Web site that monitors air traffic control correspondence. I needed some air stairs brought over here and the cops brought onboard the airplane.