Power outage cancels, diverts flights at Kennedy Airport

NEW YORK — A power outage in a terminal New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport stretched into a second day Friday after forcing some flights to be canceled or diverted, including one that was turned around and sent back to New Zealand after nearly making it to the U.S.

The airport operators said in a tweet late Thursday that Terminal 1, which handles some of the airport’s international flights, would remain closed Friday “due to electrical issues.”

The outage was caused by an electrical panel failure that led to a small fire, which was quickly extinguished, authorities said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs New York’s major airports, said it was working to accommodate affected flights at JFK’s four other active terminals.

Some planes were forced to return to their points of origin.

An Air New Zealand flight was two-thirds of the way across the Pacific Ocean when it had to make a U-turn and head back to Auckland. The flight landed back in New Zealand after more than 16 hours in the air.

Terminal 1 opened in the late 1990s. It is scheduled to be replaced by a new, $9.5 billion terminal now under construction. Groundbreaking was initially supposed to happen in 2020 but was delayed until last summer by the COVID-19 pandemic.

___ This story has been corrected to show that the Port Authority said it was working to accommodate flights at other terminals, not other airports.