From the article: JFK Airport: The Basics - Arrivals, Departures, and Terminals
Was it the delays? The endless wait on the tarmac before your gate opened? The lost luggage? Going through security? We have all been stuck at JFK Airport at one time or another. Share your complaints and commiserate with others. Let it out! Complain
VERY RUDE
- I have so had it with JFK and the rude people. i stood in line in customs for 2 and a half hours. then looking for my luggage I asked a lady, her response as she sat on her butt, i don't work for jet blue. omg never will i fly to or from JFK really.
- —Guest Krissi Mccullough
jfk 48 hours
- 1900$ ticket. Arrived from Moscow friday afternoon after an 11 hours flight. Was supposed to leave for Montreal in the evening, I was just passing by. They cancelled evening flight at last minute, and moved it to SUNDAY MORNING. They could not even find me a hotel room. I had to sleep on the floor Friday night and Saturday night, on a lttle red sheet. All I had for 24 hours was 4 cans of orange juice and airplane peanuts n tea biscuits. They gave me a 6$ voucher which I used to buy one hamburger, which cost 5.80$ all by itself. Adios forever, DELTA, hello Luftansia
- —Guest downdelta
VERY RUID
- I CAME BACK FROM A LONG TRIP FROM EGYPT. WHEN I WAS STUCK FOR A LONG TIME AT CUSTUMS THEY WERE VERY NASTY TO ME AND YELLED AT ME A FEW TIMES. THEY TREATED ME LIKE I WAS A CRIMEL I AM A 65 YEAR OLD WOMEN NO ONE SHOULD BE TREETED LIKE THAT FOR IT COST ME LOTS OF MONEY TO FLY
- —Guest ADELINE
spent 4 hours in the queue
- At terminal 1 there was 4 hour queue at passport control. Add to that horrible packed with people internals of terminals 1,2,3 unfriendly staff and you get worst airport i ever experienced. And i did it twice...
- —Guest JFK worst airport ever
desire
- despite the fact that i have neven seen any of the three airports in new york and i am not an american,i do wish to see and experience the services of JFK,LaGuardia and newark airports.i read the responses though and i gotta say, that zombie story was straight up hillarious.well, in spite of the ill services that sometimes came up amongst these airport and the inconvenience of passangers for delayed or stranded flights,i think its worth of having.what i wanna say is that if i get to live in new york city,i would love to bear those troubles cuz at the end of the day when i'll be on the terrace of my apartment and see the glittering and illuminating, gorgeously stunning look of the city that never sleeps and the #1 city in the world,i would forget all those mind harrasing and despicable experiences and i would just look up on nyc and would feel the ultimate ease and enchantment that only the nyc night can provide.
- —Guest bibek mukherjee
Traveler at JFK Airport
- I hate AA. After waiting 90 minutes for my luggage, and disinterested AA employees, the tram driver to long term parking would not open the doors - I was soaked from pouring rain! An hour later he had no choice b/c I would have stepped in front of the bus. Shame on him! And shame on every TSA who would not help me. God bless one older lady who did.
- —Guest Anon Female
Love the stories
- I just have to comment on how much I love the stories. The Zombie story is best of all, and reads like a Daniel Pinkwater tale. Is that you, Mr. Pinkwater, posing as a zombie damaged JFK traveler? Anyway, John, these are the best; many thanks!
- —AileenOCatherine
Zombies ate my brain!
- It was around 2003 or maybe 1993; I don't know, I have trouble with numbers since the brain damage. I was flying to San Francisco, and there were these Hare Krishnas in the long term parking lot. They seemed kind of nice and sincere, but one of them turned out to be a zombie, and he tried to eat my brain. He took a big chunk out of my frontal lobe before I fought him off by sinking a Bic pen into his eyeball. Good thing I always carry a ballpoint. Anyway, I missed my flight because I was in surgery. This was really disappointing, because I totally missed my appointment in Frisco, where the crab was supposedly really good. Since then I have never flown out of JFK again. I hate that airport. Even though actually I think the incident may have occurred at Newark. I'm not really sure anymore. I just hate airports where zombies try to eat your brain. (Editor's Note: This has to be the greatest comment on Queens.About.com ever! Yes, before you freak out, there's no need to get alarmed. The zombies have all been vanquished.)
- —Guest Charles
The Invasion of the Toothpaste Snatchers
- On a business trip to Florida a few years ago, I packed an almost-used tube of toothpaste in my handbag. When I went through security, they took it from me, even though it weighed next to nothing. The woman there told me that the ORIGINAL tube weighed more than the allowed weight. When I got to my hotel, I asked at the desk for some toothpaste because mine had been confiscated at the airport. A man behind me on line laughed and said, "That is sad."
- —Guest Linda.longisland
Airport Security
- Yes, I understand that airport security is necessary. Yes, I understand that it's probably a miserable job. But I sometimes wonder if TSA makes it a policy to hire sadists. At JFK, the screener made a huge deal out of the fact that the zipper wouldn't close on my regulation quart-sized clear plastic ziploc with the 3 ounce containers of personal care products. (Everything fit in the bag, but I when I tried to close it, the zipper broke.) I had to throw everything away, and got to my destination without toothpaste or deodorant. It definitely made me feel un-American!
- —Guest Susana
Delta's People Mover
- I arrived for my Delta flight almost 3 hours early. I settled in, and was just getting ready to make my bathroom stop 10 minutes before boarding was supposed to begin when they announced that everybody for my flight should get on board. Rather than the plane, it turned out to be a people mover. They crammed most everybody onto it, and I smartly snagged a seat near the entry door. We went out to the plane and loaded into the back of the plane. This was fine for me, since my seat was at the back. But woe to anybody who missed the first people mover and loaded after everyone else had taken up the overhead bin space! And with the people mover, there was no logical way to load the plane. Whomever was closest to the door got on the plane first. Biggest problem was folks had no bathroom stop warning before getting on the plane, so much longer line once we were at cruising altitude.
- —Guest WB
Stranded
- In 2007, my husband and I were in New York for business. We were scheduled to leave on a 5 PM Northwest flight, but a storm moved in. We sat on the runway for FIVE HOURS, until the bathrooms were shut down and there was no more water. We returned to the gate at 11 PM, and the crew vanished. There was no one at the Northwest desk. We were totally abandoned and stranded. Eventually, after lots of wandering around, we found a phone where we could book a hotel room. We made it there at 2 AM, and it was a total dive. We slept for 3 hours, got back up, muscled our way back to JFK, then checked in in a line that was about 1 mile long. We made it to the gate. Then Northwest decided we had to depart from another gate, about 40 miles away. So we had to go through security again. THEN they changed it BACK to the ORIGINAL gate, and we had to go through security AGAIN. By this time everybody had HAD it. I will avoid JFK if at all possible, and never, ever book a flight in the late afternoon.
- —Guest Linda Larsen
Delta of Pain
- After checking in online at home, we arrived at JFK with plenty of time for our flight. All we had to do was drop off our bags. We were directed to a slow-moving line that was a block long! Every once in a while an employee would call out a destination and fast track those travelers to the front of the line so as not to miss their flight. It took forever for us to get there, and when we did, the sadist in the Delta uniform informed us we weren't getting on our plane -- because it was leaving in less than an hour! It was their incompetence and understaffing that had caused the delay, and our destination, Prague, had never been called out. After turning their backs on us, another staffer suggested we take our bags to another building -- where there was ANOTHER BLOCK-LONG line for travelers with problems. I don't have enough room here to tell that part of the story but suffice it to say I NEVER willingly fly Delta any more.
- —Susan
Asleep at the wheel
- I've had lots of bad experiences at JFK, but the worst JFK experience actually happened before I even got there. On a ride from Manhattan, my taxi driver kept falling asleep at the wheel! We were swerving all over the highway, and though tempted to get out of the cab, it seemed like a really bad idea. It was an absolutely terrifying ride. I tried to talk to him, I even think I sang, anything to keep the guy awake. After that trip, whatever hell JFK was dishing up, looked like a piece of cake with icing.
- —Guest Kerry
Wrong Airport!
- My worst JFK experience was entirely my ex-husband's fault. There's nothing worse than reaching the check-in counter at JFK on the eve before Thanksgiving and hearing: "You do realize your plane is leaving from LaGuardia in an hour?" Ugh. Lesson learned: Always double check which New York City airport you're flying from before you leave home!
- —Guest KimKB
