JFK JetBlue terminal calmer after massive cancellations

NEW YORK — A schedule-busting siege at Kennedy Airport's JetBlue terminal that left many travelers dismayed, disheartened and distrusting seemed to ease on Monday.

A relative calm enveloped the JetBlue terminal as travelers whose flights weren't canceled managed to come and go uneventfully on Day Six of the carrier's weather-related woes.

The company said it was canceling almost a quarter of its flights on Monday but had hopes of getting back to full operations on Tuesday, almost a week after a Valentine's Day snowstorm created its travel meltdown.

On Monday morning, Dawn Colonese of New Haven arrived at JFK with her husband and two daughters — on the way, they hoped, to a Florida vacation.

Colonese had tried to call JetBlue to confirm on Sunday, but got a recorded message saying the system was overloaded; then she was disconnected.

"I wanted to get a human voice," said Colonese, who finally managed to leave a recorded complaint. An apologetic airline representative returned her call about five hours later.

When they got to the airport, the terminal looked orderly — unlike the crowd scenes of the past week. The departure and arrival boards noted only one delay, of 15 minutes, but did not mention all the canceled flights.

Colonese said if their vacation had been disrupted, "that would have been tough" — especially since it was timed around the children's school break.

Even though her family appeared to be fine, travel-wise, Colonese wasn't thrilled with what she'd seen from the sidelines: "I don't think I would fly with JetBlue again."

David G. Neeleman, the company's founder and chief executive, told The New York Times in Monday's editions that he was "humiliated and mortified" by the breakdown in the airline's operations. He promised that the company would pay penalties if customers were stranded on a plane for too long.

He said the crises was the result of poor communications and reservation systems. He said the ice storm had left many of the airline's 11,000 pilots and flight attendants a great distance from where they could operate the planes. He also said JetBlue lacked trained staff to coordinate the flight crews. The reservation system had also been overwhelmed.

The airline had scheduled 600 flights for Presidents Day, even more than the 550 to 575 flights on a normal Monday. Of those, 139 flights have been canceled, JetBlue announced late Saturday night.