At Kennedy Airport, travelers are stranded, confused as war in Iran closes airspace

At Kennedy Airport, the impact of the war in Iran was evident Sunday at near-empty boarding areas where some travelers were left stranded and confused.

The check-in counters at Kennedy’s Terminal 4 — where flights normally depart for Qatar Airways, Etihad, which is based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and the Israeli airline El Al — were deserted Sunday morning with no passengers in line and no airline staff awaiting customers, as all flights had been canceled.

Air India’s flights to Delhi and Mumbai also were canceled, an airline representative said, because they fly over Iraqi and Iranian airspaces.

Some passengers headed to India, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, however, were waiting in Terminal 8, unsure when they could get on their way. Several stranded travelers were hanging around the deserted counters for Qatar Airways, waiting for staff to show up.

Grace Love, 33, had flown in from Charlotte, North Carolina, and was supposed to connect on a flight to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for vacation. In New York, she learned her flight to Dubai, via Doha, Qatar, had been canceled, and she wasn’t sure when she could get another.

She gave up and was returning to Charlotte but had no idea where her bags were. There were no representatives from Qatar Airways to help her track them down. Asked if she still hoped to visit Dubai, she said, "maybe in the fall."

Ronald Bustria, 39, left Turks and Caicos, where he works in the hotel industry, on Friday, to visit his home country, the Philippines. He arrived in New York on Friday evening and caught a connecting flight on Qatar Airways to Doha.

But after four hours, the plane turned around and returned to New York. He was given a voucher for a hotel Saturday night and told to return to the airport Sunday. "But no one is here," he said, and no one was answering the airline’s hotline either. "We’re stuck," he said. "Just hoping for good news."

These travelers were among the hundreds of thousands worldwide who have been stranded across the Middle East after airports were shut down and airspaces closed. The canceled flights include those to Qatar, Israel, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Cancellations were expected to extend into the days ahead.

Another traveler was resigning himself to a second unplanned night in Queens, as his trip from Trinidad to Chennai, India, was impacted.

Harish Primlani, 56, was meant to be in India, helping to care for his father-in-law. He arrived at Kennedy Airport around noon Saturday and learned his night flight to Doha, en route to India, had been canceled. He was given a voucher for a hotel, but on Sunday morning, it was still unclear when he might reach his destination.

He thought of booking a new flight himself to Chennai, but found the cheapest flight was about $2,000 one way — more than his credit card limit would allow in a foreign currency.

He didn’t have a warm coat, since he’d been traveling from one warm climate to another.

"Who is going to help? I don’t know," he said. "If I was aware of this thing before, I wouldn’t have left my country."

With AP