Just six weeks into her job running the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Kathryn Garcia was confronting multiple challenges after a jet slammed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport.
The crash, which injured two Port Authority firefighters and killed two pilots, has created myriad operational issues for the agency, which manages the three major airports that serve New York City.
Ms. Garcia, the agency’s executive director, spent much of Tuesday morning trying to persuade airlines to cancel more flights out of LaGuardia, which was operating at just over half of its capacity, as the runway where the crash happened remained closed.
“The airlines have taken down some of their flights,” Ms. Garcia said in an interview at midday Tuesday. But, she said, “they have not canceled enough.”
Ms. Garcia declined to discuss details of the collision, deferring all questions to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the cause of the crash and has taken charge of the runway where it occurred.
Travelers were still flocking to the airport and to long security lines, a problem compounded by the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Administration.
The lines for screening prompted the Port Authority to stop posting the expected wait times online, Ms. Garcia said. She said that the unpredictability of staffing in the terminals by the T.S.A. had made it impossible to accurately estimate how long travelers would spend in line.
“We don’t want to provide people with inaccurate information,” she said. “We’re seeing if we can sharpen that up.”
On Monday, Ms. Garcia, the agency’s executive director, and the Port Authority’s longtime chairman, Kevin O’Toole, went to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens to see the firefighters, Sgt. Michael Orsillo and Officer Adrian Baez, whose injuries from the crash were not life-threatening.
“You could see it in their eyes — they were grateful to be alive,” Mr. O’Toole said. He added that he and Ms. Garcia talked with Officer Baez again on Tuesday morning, after he had been discharged, and found him to be in good spirits.
Ms. Garcia said that it was “incredibly lucky” that the officers weren’t hurt more severely. “They got hit by a plane, which is insane,” she said. Sgt. Orsillo was still in the hospital as of Tuesday afternoon.
Ms. Garcia and Mr. O’Toole also met with other members of the agency’s Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting unit who responded to the crash and aided their fellow officers as well as passengers aboard the Air Canada flight.
LaGuardia was not the only airport testing Ms. Garcia’s management skills. Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey had to halt all plane traffic for more than an hour on Monday morning because of smoke that had forced the temporary evacuation of its control tower.
On Tuesday, travelers complained about waits of up to 90 minutes to get through security at Terminal 5 at Kennedy International Airport in Queens.
Patrick McGeehan is a Times reporter who covers the economy of New York City and its airports and other transportation hubs.
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