JFK Airport in Chaos After Collision, Cancellations

Days after the bomb cyclone battered the entire east coast, JFK Airport is still a wreck of delays, cancellations, and even one collision.

The Port Authority reported that at 12 a.m. on Saturday, a China Southern plane clipped the right tail end of a Kuwait Airlines plane that was just about to take off for an overnight flight. Both of the Boeing 777s sustained damage, though there were no injuries reported.

According to Kuwait Airlines, their plane was made inoperable by the accident and needed repairs. The flight was cancelled altogether, adding to the number of people stranded in JFK.

Meanwhile, the airport is reportedly bursting with people who can’t get home or reach their destination, as the storm caused so many delays and cancellations that the flight schedule is still far from getting back on track. More than 6,000 flights were postponed or cancelled, and thousands of people are reportedly waiting in the airport for a chance to get where they’re going.

“People are sleeping on the ground, people are sitting on the ground,” stranded passenger Lily Crawford told reporters from Pix 11. “People have taken over wheelchairs. There are no outlets, people are running out of power on their phone It’s complete chaos.”

The single-digit cold has caused continual equipment malfunction, slowing the airport even more. Officials from JFK and Port Authority have been on Twitter offering a stream of updates, reassurances and excuses since the storm, but passengers inside the airport say communication is sparse and often contradictory.

Meteorologists expect the cold-snap to last well into next week, meaning that the frozen equipment issue will persist for the foreseeable future.