> Dozens of flights were canceled and some were diverted to other airports. An Air New Zealand flight was forced to return to Auckland after flying two-thirds of the way across the Pacific Ocean, resulting in a 16-hour trip that ended where it began.

It's a horrible situation for the airline that was handled even worse. Lesson learned: never fly Air New Zealand.

Terminals at JFK each have their own management (eg, T4 is run by Schiphol Group, aka the people who run Amsterdam Schiphol airport). Who runs Terminal 1? Is this something that was within their control, or was this a Port Authority problem?

I see in the article "...the private terminal operator will have additional customer service staff in place to assist passengers,” the Port Authority said in a statement."... but who is that? Google isn't turning up much.

It's a group of foreign airlines that run it.

Why would you put the blame on Air New Zealand?

I know someone who got screwed both ways. They went to Auckland on the outbound several weeks ago that had to divert to Hawaii because of the Auckland airport flood. Their return flight was the now infamous 16hr flight to nowhere 😂

Feels weird that they didn’t have a diversion option on this side of the Pacific - no gates of their own anywhere else in the US, or even partnerships with another airline / airline services company?

I’m always a little wary about flying airlines that don’t have a decent-sized base of operations in my origin or destination countries for situations like this. With weather, mechanical issues, terminal issues, labor issues, whatever… some better options than “turn around and go home” are good

I thought you were posting in the wrong subreddit by your first sentence. Continue…

It really is batshit they didn't have a closer option to land and transfer their passengers. Nope let's all turn around and go back. Sure if it's like a 2hr flight but that isn't a 2hr flight.

They fly to LAX and IAH. I'm sure they went back to AKL for a reason, but I don't see why they couldn't divert to one of those.

Air France, Japan Airlines, Korean Air and Lufthansa

https://www.cbinsights.com/company/terminal-one-group-association

Landing at LAX or Houston would have it's own issues:

1. you need to find a gate or bussing to terminal or something which is just extra stress

2. you need to get these people onto new flights. Where are they finding those flights?

3. need to find new accommodation for their crew

4. the plane would usually turn around with a new crew at JFK and fly back. Now they original crew is stuck in LAX and they need their rest so the plane is delayed for even longer and could impact other flights in the system

Airlines don't really own gates. And yes, they had good operations at the origin so they went back there.

Probably recovery. Easier for them to fly again when stuff is available then managing being down with crew in the wrong location for that long. Crew can't work again for 48 hours I believe on TPAC/TATL flights. For a small airline like ANZ that could be devastating as I doubt they have many reserve crews especially crews certed to fly a 787...

Anewjfk.com

All of that seems doable in this unique situation. It's one flight on one day. I'm certain they could have figured all of that out. Flying to IAH and handing over passengers to their Star Alliance partner United would have been very possible. Crew flies back on the next flight as passengers. None of this is ideal, but it prioritizes their hundreds of passengers on board instead of a few crew that would be inconvenienced.

>Crew can't work again for 48 hours I believe

They can't work, but they can be put on a return flight from IAH or LAX as passengers.

They made the decision. It could be done but you have no idea of availability on United. It's a process to get all those people rerouted.

Plane going back the next day causes a ripple effect on the schedule as well. Because normally it would go to Newark and fly back within a few short hours with ANOTHER crew. Now you need this same crew to get its mandatory rest period, you need to scramble to get them accommodations and then you fly the plane back empty later than scheduled.

Almost all of the flights in the air turned around and went back where they came from btw. Only a few continued on and those were probably already past the point of being able to return

Even though those might be difficulties it doesn't mean you should fuck over customers instead of overcoming them.

Aye, fuck over one plane or fuck over multiple other flights? Make your choice.

And as I said in another comment, the vast majority of flights headed to that terminal turned right back around as well