Stranded passengers lost their tempers and got into shouting matches with airline employees at Kennedy Airport today after delays stymied their plans yet again.
About 100 people at a Qatar Airways ticket counter were told the airline’s planes wouldn’t be able to land at JFK.
The passengers have been waiting for flights to take them back to cities in southeast Asia.
Airline representatives were trying to convince passengers to take a bus to Washington, DC, where two airplanes were ready to depart.
A ticket agent who stood on a chair and screamed for people to calm down elicited a roar of protest from the crowd.
Qatar Airways did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for the airport’s operator had no report of any incident.
All over JFK today there were sights not seen for days: long lists of on time flights, fully staffed information counters, National Guard troops patrolling the terminals and workers pushing long rows of empty luggage carts — previously so scarce and coveted that screaming matches broke out over who would get them.
Massive lines gave way to snaking check-in queues. Overall, those showing up for flights today fared much better than those who had been booked on flights earlier in the week; the latter were told they couldn’t travel until after the new year.
Tommy Mokhtari, of Dubai, was desperate to leave the United States on Wednesday, as his three-month tourist visa expired on Sunday.
A professional poker player, Mokhtari said he was facing expensive lawyers’ fees to remedy being “out of status” as well as a $600 to $800 penalty to rebook his tickets home to Dubai.
“I waited four hours in the queue just to speak to someone,” he said. “Just to get the news that I have to wait a few more days. They really need to have a backup plan. I will never ever travel again in December, never on American Airlines, and never through New York.”
Meanwhile, most flights at LaGuardia and Newark airports were taking off and landing as scheduled this afternoon.
Continental Airlines said on its website that its hub there was nearly normal, but that some cancelations and delays remained.
With AP