Passengers on American Flight Experience Deja-Vu After Two Diversions in One Night
Passengers aboard an American Airlines flight from New York (JFK) to Madrid (MAD) had a much longer night than expected. Mechanical issues caused two diversions for passengers aboard the flight that was supposed to arrive in Spain after a seven-hour journey.
The first flight departed JFK at 7:31pm and flew for three hours and 22 minutes, reaching the tip of Nova Scotia before it had to turn around due to a mechanical issue.
Reports on Twitter indicate the first diversion of the Boeing 767-300ER was caused by an exhaust gas fluctuation on one of the aircraft's engines. On its return journey, it was required to perform a fuel dump so it could land safely.
The aircraft landed back at JFK at 10:24pm, off-loaded the passengers and crew who were then put onto a replacement aircraft, another 767, to get them to Spain. However, it was like deja-vu for those flying, as the replacement jet ran into a similar issue shortly after take-off.
This 767-300ER, registered N379AA took off at 12:15am, five hours after the original departure time. Following 30 minutes of flight, the wide-body turned around after passing Massachusetts because of "failing navigational display with a right system hydraulic leak on top." It landed at 2:21am with an emergency equipment escort back to the gate.
While American wouldn't comment on the specific mechanical issues, they did provide this statement to TPG regarding the incidents:
"First, we never want to disrupt our customers’ travel plans, and we are sorry for the trouble this caused. Our customer relations team is proactively reaching out to the customers who were impacted by the diversion of both aircraft to apologize and offer compensation for their delay, and subsequent cancelation. Customers were provided overnight hotel accommodations and rebooked for flights today, Aug. 30."
Hopefully passengers paid for the flight with a credit card that includes trip delay insurance, like the Citi Prestige or Ritz-Carlton card, which recently reimbursed a TPG staffer $500 Uber after a flight cancellation.
