Some international travelers are recovering from a long night trapped onboard planes at JFK amid last night's snow. NY1's Lyndsay Christian has more.
After spending hours in the air, international travelers landing at JFK Airport late Saturday night were greeted with more hours of inconvenience.
"They didn't do nothing just give us a little bit of a snack," said one man who was stuck for hours.
QUESTION: How irritated are you?
"I have a 1-year old," he said.
"They said they didn't have room for us because of the snow yesterday," said another waylaid passenger.
The Port Authority confirmed delays for incoming flights due to bad weather.
The snow made it difficult for planes to land at their assigned gates at Terminal 7 — so they were re-routed.
That caused a major back-up on the runway and in baggage claim and passengers were stuck on the tarmac for hours until Sunday morning.
"There was no one there to actually handle the flight, including passengers and luggage and so on," a spokesman for LOT Polish Airlines said. "The only terminal that worked at the time was terminal 5, but due to the snow at the airport only two aircraft tents were available. So, the line was pretty long."
The airlines affected include the Polish airline and British Airways.
One mother traveled from Warsaw with her 3-year old.
"It was tough," said passenger Natalya Kumdima. "There were a lot of little kids on the plane and there were exhausted. People were exhausted literally. By the end of four hours, the airline gave us a little bit of water and food to keep us sane."
Passengers told us airlines were helpful — providing food and water, but no word from Port Authority on the situation, which frustrated family members waiting for their loved ones.
"There was nothing from the airport itself," said Michael Doyle, Kumdima's husband. "Nothing on the website. No announcements. There was all kind of informal through the lot attendants who were very apologetic."
The department of transportation has a law that protects passengers who have to wait on the tarmac for a long time. U.S. airlines operating domestic flights that keep travelers on the tarmac longer than three hours —without deplaning them — will owe fines as high as $27,500 per passenger.