A power outage that crippled one of New York's major international hubs has been repaired and airport operations are expected to return to normal Sunday, days after a small fire crippled travel and wreaked untold havoc on passengers around the world.
"Limited operations" resumed Saturday at JFK Airport after crews were able to complete repairs and restore power to Terminal 1 overnight, Port Authority officials announced nearly 48 hours after mayhem struck.
For several days, airlines were left scrambling to adjust for the out-of-commission terminal. A handful of flights were able to pass through nearby airports, but many more were cancelled.
In one headline-catching instance, an inbound flight from Auckland, New Zealand, was forced to turnaround mid-flight Thursday after learning of the airport terminal's outage. Passengers and crew were stuck on the plane for 16 hours and ended up back at their starting destination.
According to the Port Authority, "an electrical panel failure, which also caused a small isolated fire overnight that was immediately extinguished," triggered the power problem.
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The terminal's air traffic reportedly represents only 5% of the airport's passenger flights.
Of Saturday's scheduled flights in and out of the terminal, the Port Authority said only 10 flights had to be canceled. Twenty-six of the 64 on the schedule would fly according to schedule, while another 18 would be handled out of other terminals and 10 sent through nearby airports.
The number of Saturday cancellations was down significantly from the previous day, when passengers from 39 dumped flights had to adjust their plans.
Passengers stranded at the terminal say they're confused about where to turn next.
"Not really sure what’s going on — no one is aware of the situation, at least that’s what it seems like," said frustrated passenger Anthony Russo, who was hoping to make it to London. "I had a lot planned, I was gonna see some friends, and now I don’t know what the hell is happening."
On Thursday evening, the airlines were writing out their flight cancellations by hand because the big electronic board was still out. They gave passengers flyers. One from Lufthansa began, "Unfortunately, your flight was canceled."
Some travelers said their delayed flights wouldn't be taking off for days, threatening their travel plans or forcing them to cancel altogether. It's the latest chaos-wreaking issue to befall JFK, though two recent ones involved air traffic control.
JFK's Terminal 1 serves Aeroflot, Aero Mexico, Air China, Air France, AirPlus Comet, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, Cayman Airways, China Airlines, China Eastern, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Lufthansa, Olympic, Royal Air Maroc, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Turkish.
