Power outage disrupts NYC airport
JFK flights canceled, diverted for 2nd day after Terminal 1 electrical failure
NEW YORK — A power failure in a terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport stretched into a second day Friday after forcing some flights to be canceled or diverted, including one that was sent back to New Zealand after nearly making it to the United States.
Airport operators announced in a tweet that Terminal 1, which handles some of the airport’s international flights, remained closed Friday “due to electrical issues.”
The outage was caused by an electrical panel failure Thursday that led to a small fire, which was quickly extinguished, authorities said.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs New York’s major airports, said it was working to accommodate affected flights at JFK’s four other active terminals.
Some planes were forced to return to their points of origin.
The Air New Zealand flight was two-thirds of the way across the Pacific Ocean when it had to make a U-turn and head back to Auckland. The flight landed back in New Zealand after more than 16 hours in the air.
In New York, Alexis Weisman and Ryan Lindgren, both 28, were scheduled to fly out of JFK on Friday for a once-ina-lifetime ski trip in the Swiss Alps.
They learned at noon Thursday that the flight was canceled. They found a flight out on Saturday, but only after Weisman and Lindgren — and Weisman’s mother — spent eight hours making phone calls.
“All day yesterday, in the middle of the workday, we were getting hung up on or disconnected,” Weisman said. “One person told me it was because of a strike. Then we heard it was a power outage. Then we heard a different excuse.”
Weisman and Lindgren are now flying on a different carrier, but the booking is still through the original airline, which caused even more headaches. They’re also flying out of Newark, which is at least a 40-minute longer drive from their home.
“No one is being held accountable,” Weisman said. “We’re just really disappointed in the way that they’re handling things.”
Terminal 1 opened in the late 1990s. It is scheduled to be replaced by a new, $9.5 billion terminal now under construction. Groundbreaking was initially supposed to happen in 2020 but was delayed until last summer by the covid-19 pandemic.
JET SLIDE
As work continued to reopen the JFK terminal, a small jet slid off a runway at a Houston airport, also halting flights, officials said.
The jet landed at Hobby Airport, a Southwest Airlines hub, just before noon and slid off the runaway and onto a grassy area located between two runway safety areas.
The white and yellow jet had sustained some damage to one of its wings after sliding across the grassy area before coming to a stop, video from KTRK-TV showed.
Airport officials tweeted that everyone on board the jet was safe and had deplaned.
Officials said the jet “has been declared fire safe. Our team is working with local and federal partners to safely remove the jet from the grass.”
Airport officials said midday that flights hadn’t resumed yet.
GERMAN STRIKE
Europe experienced its own set of flight woes Friday. Thousands of flights to and from German airports were canceled as workers walked out to press demands for inflationbusting pay increases.
The strikes at seven German airports, including Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg, affected almost 300,000 passengers and forced airlines to cancel more than 2,300 flights.
Christine Behle of the Verdi labor union told public broadcaster RBB-Inforadio that failure to reach a meaningful deal with employers on pay could result in a “summer of chaos” at German airports.
The union is seeking a 10.5% increase for its members, or at least 500 euros, to make up for high inflation seen in Germany and elsewhere last year due to the knock-on effects Russia’s attack on Ukraine has had on global food and energy prices.
Verdi chairman Frank Werneke told weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that the willingness among its members to stage strikes was big and future walkouts could reach “another dimension.”
He noted that recent strikes at airports, public transport and child care facilities could be extended to garbage removal services and hospitals.