Thousands of passengers found themselves stranded at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday evening after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop following a telecommunications issue, [Business Insider] reported.
Riley Alexis Holmes arrived at the New York airport on Friday with a ticket to Oregon to see her brother perform in a high school musical, but her 6 p.m. flight faced delays before being canceled entirely.
“I called my mom and cried, and I’m just like sitting here waiting for information,” Holmes told Business Insider on Friday afternoon. The aviation disruption left travelers sleeping on terminal floors and crowding airline check-in desks across the country.
Juliana Melo, 30, from São Paulo, sat at Terminal 4 with her husband after their flight home to Brazil was grounded, leaving them separated from their one-year-old daughter.
“She’s waiting for us in Brazil with my mother and the babysitter.” “So we are very nervous,” Melo told Business Insider. Officials said that aviation regulators halted departures out of an abundance of caution due to the technical failure.
Stranded Travelers at Terminal 4
Lennard Meijer, 49, arrived in New York for a one-week business trip from Amsterdam and faced multiple cancellations that temporarily separated him from his checked luggage. After spending an hour and a half waiting in line at JFK, he retrieved his bag and secured a seat on a later flight.
“I’m half waiting for news, half deciding to take some basic stuff out of here.” “So if I have another cancellation tonight, when I go back to the city and find another hotel last minute, I’ll at least have some clothes,” Meijer told Business Insider. Kieran Cullen, 27, faced a different hurdle after completing an overseas military deployment. His return trip to Jacksonville, Florida, hit a standstill during a scheduled layover at JFK.
“We were only expecting to be here for about five hours,” Cullen told Business Insider after traveling for more than 24 hours. “So far, not a ton of information, other than just live speaker announcements discussing the centers having rotating blackouts on frequencies, but nothing specific.” Cullen and his travel group planned to stay in New Jersey for the night to seek a flight home.
Holmes said that Delta Air Lines informed her she could secure a full refund if she chose not to reschedule her journey within 24 hours, though rescheduling would forfeit the refund option.
“My first initial reaction was I was very sad, but then I was really grateful that I’m OK and that everyone hopefully is OK,” Holmes told Business Insider.
Earlier coverage: FAA Ground Stop Causes Flight Delays at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark
More on Business Insider
Related reading
- European Officials Say Microsoft Outage Shows Risks of Tech Reliance
- Canada Concludes Sweeping Free-Trade Pact Negotiations with Philippines
- FAA Lifts Nationwide Ground Stop, But Delays and Cancellations Continue (archyworldys.com)
- Minnesota Football Flight Grounded Due To FAA Nationwide Ground Stop Ahead Of Penn State Game (newsylist.com)