2 US-bound flights from Mexico stuck on tarmac for hours after being diverted to Alabama airport without customs staff

By Alaa Elassar, CNN

(CNN) — Nearly 300 passengers on board two international flights heading to Atlanta on Thursday were stuck for hours on an Alabama tarmac after their flights were diverted, amid severe weather, to a small airport without Customs and Border Protection staffing.

Delta Air Lines flights 1828 from Cabo San Lucas and 599 from Mexico City were both on their way to Atlanta when flight crews had to divert due to inclement weather and selected Montgomery, Alabama, for their diversion point, a Delta spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

Both planes landed at the Montgomery Regional Airport in Alabama because Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport was not considered suitable as a diversion airport due to thunderstorms and dangerous conditions in the region, including wind shear, according to the Delta spokesperson.

Because of severe lightning activity that went on throughout the evening, Delta flight crews “ran over their permitted duty times,” the Delta spokesperson said.

International flights are obligated to arrive at an airport with Customs and Border Protection staffing and facilities for processing, which wasn’t possible until early Friday morning “when a special accommodation was reached with Montgomery airport officials and CBP,” the spokesperson said.

“We sincerely apologize to our customers for this experience,” the spokesperson told CNN. “We fell short of how we aspire to serve and care for our customers amid thunderstorms in the Southeast U.S. Thursday evening. We are reaching out to each customer with a full refund of their booking.”

Lauren Forbes, from Boston, Massachusetts, was on board one of the flights with her boyfriend, CNN affiliate WCVB reported. Initially, the pair had a layover in Atlanta before resuming their journey to Boston’s Logan International Airport, according to Forbes.

“(The pilot) was really trying to make it to Birmingham, but we were going to run out of gas,” Forbes told WCVB.

For hours, the 147 passengers aboard Flight 599 and the 150 customers aboard Flight 1828 – both which landed in Montgomery around 10:30 p.m. local time – were stuck on the plane until about 5:30 a.m., according to the Delta spokesperson.

Passengers were given water and cookies as they waited for updates, according to Forbes.

“So everyone’s very ravenous still, and they just kept changing (the plan),” Forbes told WCVB.

“People would sleep, but then you were woken up by the announcements, and there was a point where people just said, you know, don’t make the announcement if it’s going to be a lie,” she said.

“We had to walk out onto the tarmac, and it was freezing, and it was dark, and there were hundreds of us just standing on there,” Forbes said. Delta issued Forbes and her boyfriend a flight booking from Montgomery to Atlanta, but the couple said they had to buy their flights for final leg home to Boston.

“We shouldn’t have to be responsible for that,” Forbes said.

A passenger on board one of the planes posted a video to social media showing people huddled inside the airport as security officials stood nearby.

“These folks got us roped off,” Samuel Sears said in the Facebook post. “Now we’re under security until we can go through customs, which won’t be for another three hours. I’m hungry, I’m sleepy.”

Customers continued to Atlanta the next morning as new flight crews were brought to Montgomery to operate the flights, according to Delta.

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