Thousands of passengers are stranded at John F Kennedy airport following more than 6,000 flight cancellations or delays stemming from the 'bomb cyclone' that rocked the Northeast on Thursday.

The airport had closed on Thursday afternoon due to the storm and was reopened on Friday morning.

But the reopening has been compounded by further disasters - such as a plane needing to turn back for an emergency landing after a false alarm and a collision on the tarmac.

Passenger Lily Crawford told Pix 11: 'People are sleeping on the ground, people are sitting on the ground. People have taken over wheelchairs. There are no outlets, people are running out of power on their phone.'

She added: 'It's complete chaos.'

Chaos reigns at John F Kennedy Airport as thousands of passengers are stranded due to bomb cyclone-related delays and cancellations

Passengers are packed in quite closely in certain terminals as they ride out the travel nightmare in which they have unwittingly found themselves

A plane being towed at New York's John F Kennedy Airport struck a Kuwait-bound airliner, prompting the flight to be cancelled.

A China Southern plane clipped the right tail end of a Kuwait Airways plane before the latter was due to takeoff for an overnight flight around 12am Saturday morning, the Port Authority said on Twitter.

Both aircrafts, which were Boeing 777s, sustained damage. No one was injured.

Kuwait Airways tweeted in Arabic that their plane was made inoperable due to the crash.

A China Southern plane being towed along the tarmac at JFK airport clipped the right tail end of a Kuwait Airways plane early Saturday morning. Pictured is a scene from the incident's aftermath

Both planes sustained damage but no passengers on the Kuwait-bound flight were injured. Pictured is the China Southern plane

Pictured is debris from the crash that left one plane's passengers forced to stay in accommodation after their overnight flight was cancelled

Passengers on Kuwait Airways flight 118 were taken to hotels and alternative routes for them will be planned, NBC New York reports.

The nightly low reached 9 degrees Fahrenheit (-13 degrees Celsius) the night of the crash.

The crash comes amid travel chaos across the East Coast in the aftermath of the 'bomb cyclone' blizzard which wreaked havoc along the Eastern Seaboard on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Port Authority, which runs New York-area airports, announced that flights were being limited into JFK, 'including all flights scheduled to arrive into Terminal 1 for the rest of the evening.'

It said a surge in flights rescheduled after the storm, combined with severe storm damage to equipment, resulted in delays in getting planes and passengers to gates.

The passengers on the Kuwait-bound flight were booked into hotels and will be rescheduled on different flights

Passengers line up near the ticketing area of a terminal at JFK amid the airport's many cancellations and delays

The failure of baggage claim machines has caused the baggage claim process to be done manually - as in, by hand - greatly increasing the amount of time it takes for people to get their luggage

Frustrated: Passengers wait in the airport's Lufthansa terminal area amid the chaos

Tracking site Flightradar24 said at least 12 international flights had been waiting, around two to four hours, for a gate to deplane.

Passengers complained of being stranded on the tarmac for hours and then facing lengthy delays in baggage claim that made traveling, particularly with babies or the elderly, a misery.

Multiple trans-Atlantic flights simply gave up and went home, including an Aeroflot flight from Moscow that turned back over Iceland.

The airport was shut down following Thursday's blizzard and reopened on Friday morning.

Customers are outraged due to poor communication from airport staff and baggage claim malfunctions causing all off-loading to be done by hand, according to theNew York Daily News.

The Port Authority told the Daily News that much of the chaos is affecting the International terminal and Terminal 4.

Instagram user zhxiang20 uploaded a video showing stranded passengers in the airport packed in like sardines.

Stranded passengers play cards and check their phones in an effort to pass the time

Pictured are dozens of suitcases piled atop one another at JFK

The crash comes amid general travel chaos at JFK airport ever since it closed on Thursday due to the 'bomb cyclone' that hit the East Coast. Pictured is a busy scene at a baggage claim

The airport has been plagued with travel delays and baggage claim malfunctions

Another user, Sua Lee, shows utter chaos in a video as people swarm around a JFK terminal in an effort to understand the travel nightmare unfolding around them.

Passengers told DailyMail.com on Friday of their travel nightmares due to the huge snowstorm, which caused more than 5,000 flight cancellations in and out of the US Thursday.

Teacher Jessica Holden, who was returning to New York on a Thomas Cook flight from Manchester, England, said: 'The flight was due to land at 1.55pm, it touched down at 4pm but we were sat on tarmac until 6pm.

'I waited for baggage, then at 7.30pmish they said "Oh sorry, because the plane went into the wrong terminal we can't bring it in."

'There was nothing since. It's now 11pm and we've just been told we won't get our baggage tonight. People are getting angry. I just want to go home.'

Gemma Bond, who is from the UK and was visiting New York City for a vacation, said: 'After my flight being cancelled due to JFK's closure I was very lucky to get on a later flight today which had us land at JFK at 5.50pm local time, you could see the airport and runways had masses of back log and that this wasn't going to be a quick exit.

'After 25 minutes we were informed it could be another 50 minutes it was actually another two hours plus.'

Pictured is another view of hundreds of stranded passengers at JFK airport

The Port Authority tweeted out a photo of the American Airlines Boeing 738 that safely landed at its point of origin, John F Kennedy International Airport after turning back 20 minutes after takeoff

Passenger Gemma Bond took this photo at JFK on Friday night as she was stuck on a plane for nearly three hours after landing

Crews can be seen trying the clear the snow from the runway in this photo snapped by flyer Gemma Bond on Friday night

Cars are covered in snow in the airport's parking lot in the borough of Queens, New York

Also on Friday, an American Airlines flight bound for Cancun from JFK turned around for an emergency landing after someone on board said they saw a wing was on fire.

American Airlines officially said that the plane, a Boeing 738, needed to land due to a 'possible mechanical issue'.

And the Airbus A380 - the world's largest passenger jet - was en route to land at the John F Kennedy International Airport when it was diverted to Stewart Airport in Orange County on Thursday due to winds and whiteout conditions.

Port Authority said in a statement that it is 'working diligently with the FAA, airlines, and individual terminal operators to limit the arrival of flights into JFK Airport, until there are adequate gates available to handle the backlog of flights due to recovery of flight schedules in the wake of Thursday's storm.'

Charleston, South Carolina's airport has also been heavily affected by the storm.

The Southern, subtropical coastal city rarely sees snow but received four inches in the 'bomb cyclone'.

Forecasters says below-normal temperatures are likely to continue into early next week, forecasting freezing rain from Kansas to Tennessee, and that ice could complicate road transport.

Mount Washington, New Hampshire recorded the second-coldest temperature on earth early Saturday, minus 36 Fahrenheit.

Front loaders dump snow into a melter while clearing the apron around Gates C and D at Terminal B of LaGuardia Airport on January 4

Flights at JFK were suspended on Thursday afternoon because of the storm and resumed Friday morning

Stranded travelers and airport workers watch front loaders clear the snow on January 4

People crowd into lines at JFK airport as their flights likely become delayed or cancelled