Talk about bad luck.
A few hundred passengers reportedly suffered through some of the worst travel luck Thursday when their Auckland to New York flight turned around mid-flight, heading back to its point of origin after a "power disruption" at JFK Airport shuttered operations at its international terminal.
Bloomberg reports the Air New Zealand flight bound for the Big Apple, expected to land around 5:40 p.m. local time, was forced to abandon its flight plan when the chaos unfolded at their destination. Flight data shows the Boeing 787 turn around halfway into its roughly 9,000-mile trip.
The plane had already been in the air for eight hours when the decision was made to bring the jet back to New Zealand. By the time the passengers and flight crew touched back down in Auckland, where they started, the hundreds on board had completed roughly 16 hours in the air.
The Auckland to New York route is fairly new, having started last September and becoming the fourth-longest nonstop flight in operation.
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The developing travel nightmare at JFK Airport stretched into a second day Friday, with all inbound and outbound flights at the New York City hub's international terminal halted -- at least through the rest of the day and possibly longer.
The fracas started around mid-morning Thursday, when JFK Airport first tweeted about a "power disruption" causing some terminal changes for departures and arrivals. Four hours later, it acknowledged the problem at Terminal 1, which serves more than a dozen international airlines and accounts for 8.5% of the airport's total gates, was escalating.
The outage had been expected to be resolved by early to mid-morning Friday, but JFK Airport tweeted shortly before midnight that the terminal would stay closed for the rest of the day. There was no update on when it might reopen.
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. Travelers are advised to check with their flight carriers.
And as of Friday morning, the FAA's website indicated the shutdown could linger into late Saturday afternoon.
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."
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.
As of Thursday evening, the airlines were writing out their flight cancellations by hand because the big electronic board was still out. The gave passengers flyers. One from Lufthansa began, "Unfortunately, your flight was canceled."
Some travelers said their delayed flights won'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.
