Arising from United Airlines temporarily suspending service on select Boeing 737 Max 9 planes on the weekend, a Colorado family has been left stranded in Jamaica.

The grounding of the select Boeing 737 Max 9 planes came after an Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing last Friday, resulting in Lane Nelson, a senior teacher at Prospect Ridge Academy High School in Broomfield, and her family being stranded in Montego Bay without a flight home.

She told Colorado 9NEWS, “We can’t really enjoy ourselves here (Jamaica) even though we are in a nice place, because we don’t know when we’re going home. We don’t know what’s going on. We know nothing.”

Lane said the disappointment started Saturday, when their group of six was at the airport getting ready to hit the runway and head home to Denver.

FAA grounded the flight

“The pilot came running out of his cockpit and he was obviously a little distraught,” Lane said, adding, “he didn’t know what was going on and he was like, ‘The FAA grounded everything. We can’t go anywhere. You guys have to get off the plane’.”

United Airlines shared a post on social media saying it temporarily suspended service on select Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft, after an Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Friday when a panel and window blew out mid-flight. Lane’s mother, Christine Nelson, reported that United bussed people to a hotel a couple hours away, but her family decided to stay near the airport.

According to her, it wasn’t until later that night when they were back at their hotel that the family finally got an update from the airline. “So far the only action they’ve taken is to book us on a flight a week later than when we were supposed to go home,” Christine said.

For Lane, “we’re grateful that they’re thinking of our safety, but they should do it with a plan. They shouldn’t do it and just leave us stranded. We just want to know what we can do to get home the fastest. I mean it’s been a beautiful vacation, but we were here for 10 days and that was pushing it, so another seven, that’s too long.”

The family said United Airlines claims it will reimburse them for the extra hotel stay and airfare but due to past experiences, the Nelsons are not hopeful that this will materialise.