One of the busiest airports in the US was hit by a major power outage on Thursday, February 16th. Flights arriving and departing from Terminal 1 at New York John F. Kenney Airport (JFK) were disrupted throughout the evening, and the terminal is expected to remain closed on Friday.
Terminal 1, which opened in 1998, is home to several major international carriers, including Air France, Lufthansa, and Korean Air. Where possible, the airport accommodated flights at its other terminals, although several inbound services were diverted to alternative East Coast gateways, including Newark (EWR), Boston (BOS), and Washington Dulles (IAD).
Among the affected international flights were a SWISS Airbus A330-300 from Zurich (ZRH) that diverted to Newark, and an Egyptair Boeing 777-300ER flying from Cairo (CAI) that landed at Washington Dulles.
According to data from FlightAware.com, there was also a total of 16 cancelations as a result of the power outage. One of those was an ITA Airways Airbus A330-200 from Milan Malpensa (MXP), which after several hours in the air, made a mid-Atlantic U-turn and returned to Italy. Korean Air flight KE85 also returned to Seoul (ICN) after almost five hours in the air.
Meanwhile, the unlucky passengers on Air New Zealand flight NZ2 from Auckland (AKL) to JFK experienced a 16-hour ride to nowhere. The Boeing 787-9 was midway over the Pacific Ocean when news of the power outage at JFK broke, and rather than divert to an alternative airport, the carrier made the decision to turn back to New Zealand.
A spokesperson for the airline explained the reasons for this, saying, “Diverting to another US port would have meant the aircraft would remain on the ground for several days, impacting a number of other scheduled services and customers. The flight is now returning to Auckland, where customers will be rebooked on the next available service.”
On Twitter, the airport confirmed that “the power outage was caused by an electrical panel failure, which also caused a small isolated fire overnight that was immediately extinguished.”
It remains to be seen how long the disruption will last, but JFK’s Terminal 1 remains closed on Friday morning while the airport works with the New York Port Authority to restore operations as quickly as possible. Passengers have been advised to contact their airline before traveling to the airport.
FK’s power outage was not the only mass disruption event to hit the aviation world this week. Over in Germany, Lufthansa has been forced to cancel all flights from its hubs at Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC) on Friday due to strike action by airport employees.
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