Hundreds of passengers aboard two Delta Air Lines flights were trapped on board their aircraft overnight as their flights were diverted. They were both headed to Atlanta but wound up in Montgomery, Alabama instead during bad weather on Thursday night and into Friday morning.
Delta flight 1828 from Cabo and flight 599 from Mexico City both faced storms with lightning and high winds which disrupted their approach to Atlanta. Flight 599 landed at Montgomery around 10:20 p.m. while flight 1828 landed about 10 minutes later.
Montgomery isn’t staffed by U.S. customs and so passengers weren’t allowed off the aircraft, since they originated outside the United States, and so everyone had to spend the night on board.
- Passengers aboard Flight 599 remained confined to the plane from approximately 10:20 p.m. until 5:15 a.m.
- Those on Flight 1828 were forced to stay onboard from about 10:30 p.m. until 5:23 a.m.
- Customers were offered cookies and water
In the early morning passengers were allowed off of both aircraft and into a restricted area within the terminal that was guarded with controlled and monitored restroom access. At a minimum this should have been arranged the night before rather than trapping passengers onboard.
Meanwhile, flight crew timed out, exceeding legally permitted duty hours during the delay, and so new crews had to be brought in before flights could resume.
Delta says that they would have preferred to divert to Birmingham but it faced similarly severe weather as Atlanta. The airline has apologized that they’ve “fallen short” of their customer service expectations and reports having offered refunds.
One commentator speculated that the primary issue may have been Atlanta’s unwillingness or inability to retain CBP staff late into the night rather than solely weather-related conditions, suggesting operational shortcomings at Delta’s primary hub might have exacerbated the problem. While airlines can be fined for long tarmac delays (unless dictated by safety), it’s usually the airport or government security or immigration operations that are the root cause.
This happened to us on a flight on AA from DFW to Guadalajara. We had to divert to Leon, Mexico due to weather. It was 11pm and we were just waiting till the weather cleared enough to go to Guadalajara…then the first officer timed out. Leon is a small airport…we were a big plane. They had no one at customs or immigration. They finally got someone. No luggage could come off. They had to wake the AA manager to co e back to the airport to get a passenger list so everyone could get off the plane. The captain told the staff at Leon he would not allow everyone to stay on board. By the time the entire plane of passengers and crew cleared immigration it was about 130am. Everyone went to a hotel to get 3 hours sleep. We took off at 8am once the crew was legal again. Ugh
Not allowed off the aircraft?
That’s when I call 911 with a medical emergency
If you’ve ever flown in or out of MGM you know it has four gates, a small sterile area and limited facilities. If these flights landed at 10:30pm let’s consider:
1. Gates may have been occupied by planes overnighting. With only four gates, and AA controlling at least two of them, it’s possible there weren’t gates available and AA is certainly not going to share.
2. At such a small station and at 10:30pm DL does not have the staff to handle two large mainline jets, especially since they don’t even have mainline flights out of MGM. So, how does DL staff up at 10:30pm? Who’s getting out of bed to come assist?
3. MGM is not an international airport. They have NO immigration and customs staff. At a time when we are so focused on people entering our country illegally, one can’t possibly imagine we’d just let people arriving on an international flight to touch soil without being processed. Further, where would the staff even come from? Closest international airport is 70 miles up the road at BHM. Who’s getting out of bed and driving 70 miles to come assist?
4. How do you muster the resources to create a sterile are within the sterile area to corral the passengers who have not cleared customs and immigration? Does a small airport like this even have the necessary equipment?
It feels like a stretch to claim DL and MGM should have had all this figured out when the plane touched down at 10:30pm, likely with about 30-45 minutes warning.
Georgia and Alabama voted for less government. This is what that looks like.
Sounds like a case of government inflexibilty. I mean, it’s highly unlikely someone boarded that flight in Mexico on the off chance it would be diverted to an airport without border control, so they could sneak in with contraband. One phone call should have been enough to release those poor folks into the terminal, at least.
Gary Leff notes, “In the early morning, passengers were allowed off both aircraft (DL1828 and DL599) and into a restricted area of the terminal, which was monitored and had controlled restroom access.” It’s worth noting that when flying on a premium airline like Delta Air Lines, when your flight gets diverted from Mexico to Montgomery, Alabama, you might find yourself stuck on the tarmac for approximately seven hours and fed Biscoff cookies embossed with the Delta Air Lines logo as your only sustenance. Thankfully, after this lengthy delay, Delta Air Lines provided passengers with access to a controlled, monitored restroom, allowing them some much-needed relief. It’s reassuring to know a security guard is present during such moments when you poop out your Biscoff constipated colon. It would be nice if Delta Air Lines offered passengers a bonus of 1,000 valuable SkyMiles if they remember to flush the toilet for the next passenger. Considering that Medallion Members are among Delta’s most loyal customers, Delta Elite status is extremely valuable, and passengers will go out of their way to collect SkyMiles that don’t expire.
the nature of thunderstorms makes it much more difficult to plan for than winter weather events.
both of these flights are scheduled to be in the air for at least 3 hours.
Customs is staffed at most US airports based on scheduled arrivals. They have no buffer if there are delays or diversions.
I was on an AA flight from Central America to CLT and thunderstorms developed at the Central America airport during the board process; fueling stopped and the delay continued until the captain announced that CBP at CLT would not stay 30 minutes after the scheduled closing at 9 pm to allow us to clear customs. The flight cancelled.
and it is far from certain that CBP at BHM could have or world have been able to expeditiously get the passengers off the plane.
This kind of stuff happens all the time.
If there is a moral for passengers in any of this is to not choose an inbound international flight that arrives in the evening at a US airport – and that includes many Latin America and Caribbean flights.
@Uncle Jeff – you’re absolutely right, this is exactly what less government looks like. I don’t understand “small government” people. You can’t have a “great” country with a small government. Small governments are for places like Myanmar.
Feel for them, that sucks. Weather can really throw off a plan
@Joni Ribera — Yikes, that also sounds awful, sorry that happened.
@Parker — Thanks for the additional context.
@Tim Dunn — My first instinct was to think why couldn’t they forsee this beforehand but you are right, the thunderstorms are harder to predict. Also hard to predict, you on an AA flight
Why didn’t Delta divert to an airport with the proper border control staff available? Somewhere where they had a company presence? Think about the customer – not just where to park the plane?
ALS
let us know what other airports in the SE have customs open later than ATL? MIA is a 2 hour flight away
the problem was not DL’s staffing at MGM but CBP’s unwillingness to let people off of planes.
LAX Tom,
my CLT CBP issue happened under the last administration.
Because of Delta’s superior service and exceptional customer experience, passangers refused to leave the aircraft.
It doesn’t make sense to choose Birmingham or Montgomery when Nee Orleans is available and more convenient.
Maybe a case of pushing it to the limit. I looked at a globe and saw that New Orleans or Houston wouldn’t have been too much of a diversion. Maybe one of them would have had Customs, Immigration and Agricultural Inspection folks on duty. Of course, diverting earlier requires earlier analysis.
ATL. Some of the nastiest and rudest CBP, and TSA folks. I remember flying back to ZRH and AMS to ATL. The people at those two stations were very professional. I. Will never forget going through TSA at ATL after that journey. Hop hop TSA barking orders at everyone and couldn’t understand many of them with their lingo. I was thinking, what are the Europeans thinking right now.
Less government ? You want more government to take of your every need and desire 24/7 ? What a load of bull. Less government had nothing to do with the unscheduled diversion. Clowns.
It’s a disgrace that our government and our airlines are unable to handle exceptional circumstances in a more thoughtful or smarter way.
It’s entirely predictable that these kinds of diversions would happen. Why was there no proper plan for it? Keeping passengers on board this way isn’t a proper plan. All airports, not just international ones, should have a procedure ready. The CBP should have an action plan. The airline should coordinate better. Failure, failure, failure.
You know, most of the dumb s*** remarks are made by people who have NO CLUE. NADA, BUPKIS as to what is going on. To Creditian, KMSY is not a viable alternate due to the distance. from KATL. The state governments had NOTHING to do with the issue. The issue was WEATHER for a start. No one yet can control “Mother Nature”. Most storms move west to east. Quite possibly, BHM was already saturated with diversions. The pilots can’t run east because the storms are headed that way. When lightning storms are within 10 miles of the affected airport ramps are CLOSED. NO IN…NO OUT for 20 minutes. If a lightning strikes within the 20 minutes…the clock starts again. That’s because ramp workers have been injured or killed. So, exactly what should Delta, American, United, JetBlue, et al do? The aircraft carries fuel to get from the destination to the arrival. They also carry enough fuel to get to a required alternate. The alternate must also have FORECAST weather (again Mother Nature). Lastly, they carry an additional 45 minutes of fuel above that. The aircraft must be able to LAND there, too. Now, since Mother Nature cannot be tamed, I’m positive that the MGM airport was picked because the FORECAST Indicated that the destination airport (ATL) would be better in XXX time. BUT…Mother Nature, again, wasn’t going to cooperate. Now, MGM/CBP should have stepped to the plate and figured out how to take care of the people and taken care of that first. This was a force majeur event. If you are ignorant and don’t understand “force majeur”, look it up. As a Part 121 flight instructor, I’ve taught this stuff.
Seems like bad flight planning from the flight ops department and not being in sync with the meteorologists. As others said, it should have been obvious to flight ops that the flights would be diverted due to the storms in plenty of time to divert to an airport that could provide full service. IAH or MSY would have been better options.
The problem isn’t with Delta. This could happen on any airline. And for the idiot that suggested New Orleans. That airport is twice as far and you don’t know what the weather was there.
Murikans really like to opine about matters of which they have zero knowledge or experience.
The answer is to give local authorities the ability to step in and ameliorate the situation when CBP is not co-located. It’s a systems problem, not a delta problem
What people have to know is that after the first two hours, what they should do is quietly compose e-mailing to three or more local news stations. Send this email all at once, and give them a few seconds of video or pictures of the bathrooms too.
I assure you in 20 min the manger at the airport will be dragged out of bed, and they will start calling the people they needs out of their beds. Then the airport mangers can say what US Govt agencies are NOT helping to the reporters. And, those agencies will get calls from news services, and suddenly everyone is dragged out of bed.
Its not the flight attendants, it not the pilots, and it often not even ground crew that need the heat on them. It IS the airport mangers and they government agencies who need to be talked to strongly. However, you have to complain before the airport release any information because what the passengers need to get stuff happening is a SHOCKING news story. The news outlet’s head or editor needs to be is asking, “Is the the first we are hearing about this? And, do we have a scoop on this?”
I thought the DOT rules state they must be allowed to deplane after not more than 3 hours? Couldn’t they deplane to use the bathroom, monitored, as Gary says? Does Delta get fined by the DOT for not following that? I would be PISSED if I wasn’t allowed to PISS in a timely manner!
Most of this is out of DL’s control. The plane eventually begins to run low on fuel and needs to land somewhere. Possibly it didn’t have enough fuel to make it to CLT or TPA (assuming no weather there). It’s a small airport with limited resources.
Since passengers could not be screened it’s not like DL could charter a bus to finish the trip.
An example for the ROW. We are great.
For all you continuing to blame DL, ATC or anyone else, please reread @Win_Whitmire’s post. In addition:
1. Storms can pop up in a matter of minutes. A FORECAST of storms is not the same thing as RADAR-CONFIRMED storms.
2. When storms pop up pilots options can be limited, especially when there is a line of storms as opposed to individual cells.
3. For those of you thinking MSY or IAH were options:
3a – Diversion airports are supposed to be selected PRIOR to departure. It’s quite possible MGM was the designated diversion airport for these flights. I know UA uses MDT a lot for international diversions from EWR and IAD. Why? Close to the hub and does not experience disruptions to normal operations when there are diversions.
3b – Planes do not depart with enough fuel to fly two hours past their destination. Factor what I’m sure was a holding pattern and I’m sure the plane did not have enough fuel to make it to MSY or IAH.
3c – No one seems to be considering the fact that there also have been weather near MSY and / or IAH.
I’m sure the people who believe they could have done better than DL and MGM in this instance probably also think they know more than the pilot, their mechanic, their doctor and their dog’s vet.
I love it. Delta messes up & Tim brings up AA. Who saw that coming?!
I left MGM yesterday am on AA to DFW. Crews had brought in kripy cremes abd other snacks lol. All flights were leaving out of the 3 downstairs gates. We were finally able to depart from gate 5, but waited 30 minutes for a tug. It was a madhouse!
What about Tampa or NOLA? What about delaying departure in the first place. It’s almost like they were about to drop their landing gear and changed their minds after getting first info on the storm. These storms can be predicted far in advance (until NOAA is no longer around), so they should have had more planning in advance.
Was trump and musk in charge of this? What a clusterf$&k.
@Parker, I have flown in and out of Montgomery many times, but avoid it when flying to Montgomery now and go to Birmingham instead to get a non-stop flight. I drive the rest of the way.
At MGM there are no dedicated gates for any airline, including American and Delta. Their planes go to whatever gate is open.
Yes there is no Customs and Immigration there, but Delta should have arranged for the passengers to get off in the restricted space and use the bathrooms with a guard there many hours before the did it.
Sounds like a first world problem to me.
MSY is on the route from MEX to ATL, not another 2 hours flying.
When ATL closed, 599 was circling at Mobile. At that moment, MSY was even closer to 599 than MGM.
MSY is ONE of the diversion airports for 599. Every flight has multiple diversion options, not just a single one.
Apparently somebody doesn’t know where New Orleans is. Did you skip your geography class?
I was on DL 1742 ATL-MCO Thursday evening. We diverted to BHM and were on final when we went around and the Captain advised we were going to MGM. I knew what that meant. Arrived MGM at 22:30 CDT. We were one of 11 aircraft that sat on the ramp waiting out the storm to get refueled. Finally departed MGM at 02:14 CDT and arrived ATL 04:15 EDT. The flight crew did a great job considering. Perhaps network should have held us at MCO?
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1742/history/20250410/2235Z/KMCO/KMGM
@Creditian You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Thanks for the chuckles from the silly comments imagining DL could miraculously solve the issue with shear will power. Oh, and blaming smaller government? Wow, “if it fits my desired narative I’ll use it even when totally irrelevant” mentality at it best!
roberto,
because I actually had a similar itinerary but on AA via CLT. THAT’s how I know it isn’t just a DL problem.
and I can assure you and everyone else that CBP at ATL is open later than CLT
It is silly that people are bringing up MSY or IAH as diversion airports when there are other major airports far closer to ATL that both these planes could have used. I’m thinking both CLT and JAX. They’re big airports that surely would have still had Customs open. The Q is why (as Parker speculates) Delta had pre-determined to divert to MGM when operations surely must have known that Customs would be closed by time these flights landed. This was a rather big screw up.