JFK Terminal 1 Suffers Fire & Power Outage, Causing Wild Diversions

I was caught up in the shutdown. Flying JAL 5 to Tokyo Haneda and fire alarms kept going on for hours. Parked at terminal 8 because T1 parking is closed. Took shuttle to T1. Ended up taking shuttle back to T8 where my flight departed from. Even most of the entrance doors at T1 were closed.

Terminal One is a dump. It is the smallest now of JFK's terminals, and one of the most crowded and congested at peak times. Flew out of there to Switzerland and back two weeks ago. It was a miserable experience. It will take years for the the new Terminal One to take shape and eventually replace it and it cannot come soon enough. Amazing to think when T1 opened in 1998, it was an oasis but over the years, as Delta has expanded further into T4, many airlines have been pushed out and consolidated at T1 creating a huge mess there.

Turn backs after multiple hours in flight seem questionable at an airport that has multiple terminals with USCIS processing ability. At worst case remote stands could be used at congested terminals for flights already in flight. Since so many flights did go to other terminals you have to wonder who made the calls on the flights that turned back?

Waiting for @Sean M to tell us all it's a lucrative day for those passengers originating from the EU. Because terminal fire is not an extraordinary circumstance due to the claim that someone else could have taken a reasonable measure to avoid the extraordinary circumstance from occuring. Ka-ching!! Ka-ching!! Ka-ching!!

I was on todays flight LX22 from Geneva to JFK. The captain informed us about a fire at JFK Terminal 1 and that we‘ll be landing in Boston instead. That was about 2-3 hours before landing. At about 11.30am ET. The flight was pretty empty. I was in Business and only two others were with me in the small business cabin in front. But even further back our plane was pretty empty. That somehow helped because the amazing crew could tell everybody what their options were. Unfortunately Swiss wasn‘t able to provide any further transportation so basically everybody was on it‘s own. They suggested Amtrak or Busses to New York later today - strangely not suggesting getting a flight. I had bought internet on board (ridiculously expensive at Swiss) and was actually able to book a flight. But by the time we landed and most of the people were trying to get a onward flight, all flights to New York were sold out for the day. After landing in Boston we had to wait for busses and stairs and immigration took almost two hours. I had to cancel my JetBlue Flight and rebooked for tomorrow. So I’ll spend a night in Boston. And will forward the receipts to Swiss as we were told to do.