- American Airlines held passengers on a plane with limited air-conditioning for six hours.
- Genna Contino, a reporter for The Charlotte Observer, said passengers were sobbing on the plane.
American Airlines held passengers on a hot plane with no food or drink service for six hours on Sunday afternoon, according to a reporter for The Charlotte Observer.
According to The Charlotte Observer, the flight from Charlotte Douglas International Airport to New York City JFK was scheduled to depart in the early afternoon, but due to issues with the fuel tank, the airline transferred passengers to another plane before holding it on the runway.
Genna Contino, a reporter for the news outlet who was on the flight, said the first plane had "limited" air conditioning for the first three hours, while the second plane had no air conditioning or food-and-drink services.
She said in a tweet that by the sixth hour of being held on the plane, another passenger on the flight was having a "mental breakdown." She added that American Airlines did not allow passengers to exit despite their distress.
Contino said the airline turned the air conditioning off to save fuel, "until people started sobbing and having panic attacks."
Representatives for American Airlines did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Andrew Trull, an American Airlines spokesperson, told The Charlotte Observer that maintenance issues and a weather delay caused the six-hour holdup.
Tull told the local news outlet that the flight to JFK originally boarded at 1:40 p.m., but the airline later told passengers to leave the plane at 3:50 p.m. They then boarded another aircraft at 4:30 p.m., which eventually left for JFK at 7:30 p.m.
"While certainly an unfortunate delay, it is something we apologize to our customers for with the combination of maintenance and weather," Trull said.