"They actually had liquor as well, but they wouldn't dispense it. They said it was against regulations."
He said one woman on his flight broke down about three hours into the wait, had a panic attack and locked herself in a bathroom for more than an hour.
"She was just sobbing. She was inconsolable," said Farrell, a real-estate executive who lost a day's work as flight attendants joked about the overtime they'd make, he said.
"You gotta realize the frustration - you can look out the window and you can see, there's the gate, if you let us off the plane we can walk there," said Farrell.