![Passengers waited hours for an open gate at JFK airport [Reuters]](http://www.vinnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/JFK-snow-delays.jpg "JFK snow delays")
New York, NY – Stranded passengers lost their tempers and got into yelling matches with airline employees at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday after delays stymied their plans yet again.
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About 100 people at a Qatar Airways ticket counter were told the airline’s planes wouldn’t be able to land at Kennedy. The passengers have been waiting several days for flights to take them back to cities in southeast Asia.
Airline representatives were trying to persuade passengers to take a bus to Washington, D.C., where two airplanes were ready to depart. As the crowd surged toward the ticket counter shouting in anger, an airline agent stood on a chair and screamed for people to calm down, telling them that agents were trying to help them.
Instead of quelling the crowd, his words elicited a roar of protest.
“There was basically chaos,” said Farhan Naqvi, who witnessed the angry crowd. Travelers pounded on the counters and “security was trying to push them back,” he said.
Security guards and uniformed airport officers were summoned to subdue the crowd. There were no reports of injuries.
Qatar Airways did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ron Marciso, a spokesman for the Port Authority, had no report of any incident.
Naqvi has been driving back and forth from his home in Manhattan for the past three days to drop off his aunt for a flight to Karachi, Pakistan. The flight has been rescheduled and canceled countless times.
“Think about these people. They’ve been here for three days,” he said. “They’ve been stranded at the airport, and there’s nobody to respond to their queries. So naturally they’re getting upset.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of unclaimed bags were piling up on the floor of Terminal 8 — several of them tagged for other airports. Workers had set up rope barriers around the piles and were escorting travelers through the maze to search for their luggage.
Which self-respecting Jew would even contemplate travelling with Qatar Airways?
If New Yorkers are all so sure that the failures in plowing the streets are the Mayors fault and not an unfortunate, uncontrollable “act of g-d” (rather than human error)….
Then how come JFK can’t get it’s act together, 3 days later?
Certainly no one thinks that Bloomberg is in charge of the JFK cleanup not is it the same Sanitation dept. union.
This is not typical for a snowstorm, and seems very suspicious. Probably a sympathetic union slowdown to show solidarity with the sanitation workers union.
The situation is easy to understand;
The employees can’t get to work, they rely on mass transit. I know of someone using mass transit that spent 5 hours commuting from one end of Brooklyn to the other. If it took me 5 hours to get home and I were making their salary I might just call in sick myself.
To #1 - GB Jew- I took Lufthansa Airlines, one time (from Europe to EY). Their service was very good, and the Kosher meal (excellent quality) was not double wrapped, but triple wrapped (the meal’s kosher certification came from Brussels, Belgium). There were also many Israelis on the Lufthansa flight.
Re Qatar flight problems: I wonder if it’s the fault of the Mossad? After all, aren’t all calamities that befall Arabs anywhere in the world the fault of the Jews/Israel/the Mossad?
My son left for Israel yesterday on Swiss Air from JFK to Zurich then onto Tel Aviv, there were delays of course but no one who was there the past 4 days needed to have security called!