Passengers made to sit on the tarmac at Boston Logan International Airport for around two hours say they were forced to delete videos of the incident from their phones by an airline staff member, who also threatened to have them arrested if they didn’t comply.
After would-be passengers of the Toronto-bound Porter Airlines flight learned that their trip would be canceled due to a mechanical malfunction on the aircraft, they were ordered to leave the plane and wait in the terminal building.
After being told that the gate’s public address system was not working, passengers had to line up to get information individually from Porter staff. Things became heated, however, when frustrated passengers began to pull out their phones and video-record Porter staff delivering information.
She said passengers were warned that if they failed to delete their video recordings they “were going to have us arrested.” A passenger said many of her fellow passengers agreed to delete their videos. However, she decided to keep some on her phone, despite the airline staff’s threats.
Her videos appear to show a Porter representative explaining that video recording in the airport was not allowed under security rules. The Massachusetts Port Authority has said there is no such law or policy. “There is no law or policy that prohibits filming inside Logan Airport except in secure areas and of all security procedures,” MPA spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan told Newsweek.
Porter Airlines spokesperson Brad Cicero told Newsweek the company “apologizes to everyone who was affected by the flight delay and for the information provided by taking video.” He said the delay was a result of the “bomb cyclone” that rocked much of the East Coast.
An official refuted passengers’ claims, insisting that “while it was indicated at the time that police based at the airport could be called to address this situation, there was no direct statement that passengers would be arrested.”
Passengers ended up having to spend three extra days in Boston until they could be placed on a different Toronto-bound Porter flight on Monday.
While Porter has provided hotel accommodations and covered the cost of some meals, it has refused to pay stranded passengers additional compensation, citing the weather as the cause of its flight delay rather than mechanical reasons.
It is a common policy for airlines to be exempt from having to pay compensation for flights delayed by weather-related problems.
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