Washington: Travellers at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport still face long delays and mounds of unclaimed luggage days after a snowstorm and freezing temperatures disrupted hundreds of flights.
While all runways and taxiways had been ploughed clear of snow and reopened by Sunday, inbound flights were delayed by more than two hours at New York City’s main international travel gateway, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.
And passengers faced a fresh headache Sunday afternoon: a water main break that flooded the baggage claim area and customs hall of Terminal 4 and halted international arrivals. Flights headed overseas weren’t affected by the deluge, the airport said on Twitter.
“Airlines remain in recovery mode, rebooking passengers from cancelled flights and reuniting passengers with their luggage,” the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which manages the airport, said in a statement Sunday. “Frigid temperatures continue to cause equipment failures and slower than normal operations. Customers may experience residual delays, particularly for international flights.”
Parked Planes
Many inbound travellers sat for hours on parked planes Saturday as the airport and operators struggled to get aircraft to and from gates. The Port Authority blamed “cascading” issues that included the large numbers of holiday travellers to frozen equipment breakdowns, difficulties in baggage handling and staff shortages.
The gridlock was particularly bad at Delta Airline’s hub at Terminal 4 along with Terminal 1, which is used by overseas carriers such as Air France and Japan Airlines. Officials eventually diverted 17 flights, shut down Terminal 1 and used buses to transport travellers from 25 airliners to it and the Delta base.
Travellers took to social media to vent at the delays, the chaos and the lack of information.
“JFK airport right now is honestly how I imagine an apocalypse would be like,” @isabellaucci said on Twitter, after waiting more than nine hours for another flight after her JetBlue departure was cancelled.
