Power Outages at JFK Cause Frustration
Jennifer Billock August 18, 2016
After power outages, passengers at JFK Airport’s Terminal 8 were stuck in the dark for hours.
On Tuesday before 2 p.m., the power went out at Terminal 8 of John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). It began as a common short summer interruption of power, but two transformers overloaded when the power was turned back on, plunging the terminal into darkness until 8:30 p.m. local time. Authorities at the airport are unable to say exactly when the power went out, and bad weather at the same time also brought flight delays across the city.
In the darkness, passengers struggled to find their baggage at non-working baggage carousels. Flights were either delayed or cancelled, or rerouted to another airport – and passengers had to find their way there themselves. And because the computer system was still working, some flights were able to leave during the outage – just without the necessary baggage.
“I saw everybody coming out,” passenger Hillary Wyner told CBS New York. “They were saying it was pitch black; they couldn’t see inside. I was supposed to fly out of JFK about 9 p.m. and they transferred me to LaGuardia at 6 o’clock in the morning. I have no ground transportation, no hotel – I’m on my own.”
To make matters even worse, the air conditioning went out with the power.
“There’s no AC, which helps too, you know, and there’s nobody to talk to because all the service places were empty,” passenger David Patterson told CBS.
JFK Airport has been seeing some stress lately – just Sunday night Terminals 1 and 8 were evacuated when a woman exiting a plane said she heard gunshots. It turns out that it was just fans watching the Olympics, cheering and clapping.
[Photo: Airways]
"And because the computer system was still working, some flights were able to leave during the outage – just without the necessary baggage." Yet another reason to fly carryon-only if at all possible.