Move FM Global News

NEW YORK CITY, New York: A two-day power outage in a terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport resulted in flight cancellations, including a flight from Auckland, New Zealand that was forced to return home.

Airport officials said Terminal 1 was to remain shut due to ongoing electrical issues. Some flights were diverted to other airports.The electric outage followed a fire in an electrical panel, authorities said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that 39 of the 64 flights scheduled to arrive or depart from Terminal 1 on February 17 were canceled, 13 other flights were diverted to other terminals, while 12 moved to other airports.

“The Port Authority continues to work with Terminal 1’s operator to complete repairs, restore power and resume flight operations at the terminal as soon as possible,” agency spokesperson Alana Calmi said.

Air New Zealand reported that its flight to New York was two-thirds of the way across the Pacific Ocean when it was forced to turn around and return to home. The round trip flight took 16 hours.

Air New Zealand said the reason it was not diverted to another US airport was because it could not then make planned connections with other scheduled passengers.

“Our teams have been working through that rebooking process and were on hand to help customers with their travel arrangements when they arrived in Auckland,” the airline’s chief operational integrity and safety officer, David Morgan, said, according to the Associated Press.