Marooned: ‘Why won’t they get us out of here?’

Lack of information, flights frustrates people stranded at the airport

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Matt Lozon became trapped, marooned, stuck in a holding pattern at the international airport here. He slept every night on the floor in Terminal D, part of a horde of travelers hoping to scope a precious ticket on a flight off the island. He lives in Idaho, which might as well be on a different planet.

“I just feel like there’s no hope,” he said late Monday. “Why can’t we get out of here? Why won’t they get us out of here?”

Getting off Puerto Rico and other storm-ravaged Caribbean islands has been an exercise in frustration, often culminating in despair, rage and another grim night in a sweltering airport with no air conditioning and the steady boil of angry voices.

While travel within the U.S. territory remains perilous — with washed-out and debrisstrewn roads and damaged bridges — airports are gradually reopening. But Hurricane Maria severely damaged the radar system in the island’s capital of San Juan and, with limited air traffic control, there are safety concerns that limit the pace of arrivals and departures.

In the hot and humid airport, people are upset with the feeble supply of reliable information from the government, and they rarely hear encouraging news from the airlines. Some are fleeing damaged or destroyed homes, seeking refuge on the mainland. Others are accompanying elderly or ailing family members who need medical care that the island right now cannot readily provide.

Illumination comes from fluorescent lights powered by generators, but there are dim places in the terminals and airline workers have been operating by flashlight in many cases. There are no computers powered up, no printers; everything is done with paper and handwriting.

American Airlines on a normal day has seats for about 3,000 passengers on 20 scheduled flights from San Juan. Monday and Tuesday, it had just a single flight going out each day. The airline was flying a widebody jet with 300 seats. Wednesday, with airport conditions gradually improving, American expected to get three flights in and out.

“There’s no aircraft that can hold 3,000 people and there’s obviously a backlog of individuals,” American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said.

JetBlue, the island’s most active carrier, has had six flights a day operating out of Terminal A, but they are designated as relief flights, focused on bringing in supplies and emergency personnel, and the airline hasn’t yet sold seats to customers on the inbound flights. Customers can, however, book a seat on the planes leaving the island, though the airline warns that lines will be long. JetBlue says it has managed to carry 3,600 people off the island as of Tuesday.

“Given the difficult conditions, every flight that makes it out is an accomplishment,” JetBlue spokesman Doug McGraw said in an email.

When a passenger does get on a plane and it taxis toward the runway, there might yet be a three-hour delay on the tarmac.

American managed to get three jets to Puerto Rico on Friday, but a fourth flight was canceled and a fifth was ordered by officials at the San Juan air traffic control tower to turn around in midair and return to Miami, Feinstein said. The airport was overburdened.

Police have been herding airline customers to Terminal D to sleep on the floor, which initially was still wet and sandy, Lozon said. He said every night he was told he had a flight, but every night the flight was canceled.