Two aircraft were quarantined for 90 minutes at New York’s JFK airport yesterday after a telephone threat to the Port Authority.

An American airlines flight from San Francisco and a Finn Air flight from Helsinki were moved to a remote area of the airport following a series of hoax calls that were made claiming a number of hijacks were planned on US flights, according to reports.

Air marshals and the FBI were said to have boarded the aircraft to investigate and one of the airport’s runways was shut down.

American Airlines issued a statement saying: “We generally don’t comment on security issues, but our people are trained to work with authorities to thoroughly assess these types of threats - both credible and non-credible.

“We recommend reaching out to the Port Authority Police Department for additional information.”