Travelers weep as storm cancels hundreds of flights at NYC airports

Travelers at New York City’s airports were met with despair on Sunday as a thunderstorm delayed or canceled more than 1,000 flights.

Newark, LaGuardia and JFK airports collectively reported more than 600 flight cancellations and upwards of 500 delays by 1:30 p.m., according to data from FlightAware. Each of the city’s three major airports reported more flight issues than anywhere else in the world, the data shows.

The headaches were the latest chapter in a hellish summer for air travelers in New York, where the airports have faced staff shortages and regular weather events that have grounded planes.

“I became a little emotional and I started crying,” said Alex Vikartofsky, who was stranded at Newark Airport for 18 hours on Sunday. She said she was on a layover between St. Thomas in the Caribbean and Chicago that was scheduled to last just a couple of hours.

“Just frustrated about not being able to get home and feeling stranded, I don’t know New York so I felt kind of lost,” Vikartofsky said.

She described a scene at the airport’s terminals with hundreds of frustrated travelers, many of whom were crying.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday afternoon reported flights at JFK were delayed by an average of more than four hours. The FAA earlier in the day also grounded planes at LaGuardia for nearly three hours.

David Radell, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said last week’s heat wave led to a high amount of moisture in the air, which in turn formed this weekend’s storms.

Radell said thunderstorms would continue into Sunday evening, with a total of up to one inch of rain in the New York City metropolitan area.

In June, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia experienced hundreds of delays for multiple days in a row, and airlines like United cited severe weather for delays and passengers were told staffing was an issue as well.