Passengers From Three International Flights Quarantined Upon Arrival in U.S.

Passengers from three overseas flights were quarantined within two days at two airports in the northeast United States last week. On Wednesday, an Emirates A380 arriving from Dubai was halted short of JFK's Terminal 4 when several passengers reported feeling ill, CBS New York reported.

According to NBC Philadelphia, 12 passengers from two different American Airlines flights – one from Paris, the other from Munich – were also quarantined on Thursday after displaying flu-like symptoms upon arrival in Philadelphia. On each of the three flights, some of the passengers had recently made pilgrimages to Mecca, where currently there is an aggressive outbreak of the flu.

“Even well before the flight when we were in line for boarding in Dubai, there were people who were obviously very sick and should not have been allowed to get on board in the first place,” Emirates passenger Erin Sykes told CBS New York. Emirates believed the New York incident was caused by food poisoning, but they also suggested that a flu virus could have been a possible cause.