JFK Airport Experience- Construction Season

I know a lot of you are flying through JFK airport this summer so wanted to provide my experience from yesterday and see if it can help. Flew on Delta and made up a bunch of time in the air. Unfortunately our gate was not ready when we landed so we sat for 10 minutes while the tarmac cleared. I have heard the waiting for a gate issue can get really bad since Delta moved all operations into terminal 4 so 10 minutes wasn't too bad.

Terminal 4 is very nice on the inside. Landed at gate B53 and unfortunately the walk to baggage claim/ the airtrain/ check-in counters is 0.7 miles. If I had to connect planes and go to A15 it is 1.0 miles. Bring your walking shoes! I would probably book at least an hour connecting at JFK, much longer if changing terminals. Also, if you're ending at JFK, save yourself the effort and gate check your bag especially at T4. There was no need to walk an extra mile lugging around 25 lbs, should have gate checked it but I was stubborn

Got to the gate at 653pm, after a quick restroom break was able to make it to the Airtrain by 710pm. The Airtrain dead ends at Terminal 4 and you cannot take the Airtrain to Terminal 1 given the construction. If you need to get to Terminal 1, you must take the airtrain to Terminal 8 and then take a bus over to Terminal 1.

Ended up waiting 10 minutes for the Jamaica train. There is also an Airtrain that goes to Howard Beach that is currently using the inside track that used to loop around the terminals. Left T4 around 719pm and made it to Jamaica by 733pm. In order to leave Jamaica, you must use a MetroCard. I think the charge was $8.25 or $8.50 and you just swipe the card to get out. They have a bunch of machines at the Jamaica station so no worries if you don't have a card yet.

Hurried over to the LIRR and waited 5 minutes for a train to Penn Station. At Jamaica, you can pretty much get anywhere on LIRR- Long Island, Grand Central, Penn Station. Trains to NYC load on the low number tracks (1-3) and Long Island higher numbers. Waited 5 minutes for a Penn Station train and activated my ticket on my phone before getting on. There's an easy app to download and buy your ticket beforehand. You must activate the ticket before getting on the train.

The ride to NYPenn was about 20 minutes so got to track 18 at 8pm. There was a NJ Transit train leaving for where I needed to get at 805pm so I booked it through Penn Station to get over to track 2. Of course they were loading a Northeast Corridor train on track 1 at the same time so took a bit to get downstairs but made it! Again had to download the NJ transit app and make sure the ticket was activated before getting on.

Overall times-
Inside JFK T4 to baggage claim- 17 minutes
Airtrain to Jamaica- 15 minutes
Jamaica to Penn Station- 20 minutes

Pictures from the flight

This was a diverted flight from JFK-FLL that was headed for Nassau Bahamas



Ft Lauderdale beach



Thunderstorms in the area



Weird clear blue water off the coast of FL. Looked like somewhere east of Jacksonville? Anyone know what this area is?



First view of long island



Landed on the 13s. You can get really good city views on the left side of the plane when they use these runways. I was on the right so got the JFK views. Only 1 plane waiting to takeoff at 635pm, I was amazed