JetBlue passengers have claimed they were held “hostage” by the airline on planes stranded on the tarmac at JFK Airport during a night of chaos.

Around 20 planes were stranded on the runway at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday night, 30th January.

Many of the planes were stuck on the runway for hours due to a problem accessing the gate.

According to reports, one passenger urinated in his seat because he was not allowed to access the toilet, while another traveller suffered a panic attack.

JetBlue customers complained about the treatment and claimed the company refused to cancel flights and held them “hostage” to allegedly avoid paying hotel costs.

One customer wrote: “Been stuck at JFK for 12 hours, no communication or anything and they refuse to cancel the flight basically holding us hostage to our luggage. Also, your terminal does not have pet rest areas! Not okay @JetBlue.”

‘Laura Mardkha’ said: “After a 2 hour delay, we were stuck on the runway at JFK for 2.5 hours and were told there is no time line on when we can get out. So far many screaming children and one passenger had a panic attack… I’m going to need more than a full refund this time @JetBlue.”

‘Anni Stoll’ tweeted: “I’m convinced @JetBlue held everyone hostage at JFK long enough that now they don’t have to pay for people to have a hotel.

“There are families with babies and we met a child who was traveling alone like wtf! It’s so disorganized and we can’t leave who knows where our luggage is!”

JetBlue communications manager Derek Dombrowski said: “After this weekend’s heavy snow and freezing temperatures in the Northeast, we are focused on safely resuming our flight schedule. We have made good progress in ramping up operations in Boston, LaGuardia and Newark.

“At JFK, we began operations on Saturday as planned, but we faced a number of conditions that delayed the operation. We have combined some flights today to ease those limitations and are working to rebook customers.

“It typically takes a few days to fully recover when a storm of this size significantly impacts our two largest markets of New York and Boston, and restarting safely remains our first priority.

“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and are working to get them on the road as quickly as possible.”

According to reports, over 75 percent of all flights from JFK were cancelled on Saturday after New York was blanketed by snowfall caused by Winter Storm Kenan.