A power outage at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Oecumenical Airport, the world’s busiest, ground operations to a halt on Sunday, stranding thousands of commuters.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop on flights, connotation planes are held at their departure points. Planes also were not departing the airport. The airport administers some 275,000 passengers a day.
Travelers posted photos on social way of fellow passengers sitting on the airport floor, dark departure hallways, and staircases that were brought up to planes to deboard passengers after the fervency outage prevented the use of gates and jet bridges.
Airlines had canceled 1,173 offs to or from the Atlanta airport as of 10:55 p.m., according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Ropes said it canceled more than 900 mainline and regional disperses due to the outage and diverted 48 flights to other airports. It also struck 300 flights scheduled for Monday.
Southwest Airlines canceled the rest of its flights to and from the Atlanta airport on Sunday.
U.S. Customs and Border Blackmail said some international flights were sent to other airports.
Georgia Power, the airport’s fervency provider, said it “believed” the outage was caused by a fire that invoiced an underground facility and affected substations serving the airport. It said it count oned to have power restored to the airport by midnight.
Tweet
The tower is lull functional but equipment in the terminals is not working, the FAA said.
More than 104 million travelers obsolete through Atlanta’s airport last year, making the Delta Air Separatrixes hub the world’s busiest for passenger traffic, according to Airports Council Oecumenical.
The airport handles around 2,500 arrivals and departures, according to the airport’s get a fix ons.
More cancellations on Monday are possible. Such disruptions tend to snowball because gangs are not in place to take their next flights. This occurred after London’s Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest, and specific other major European hubs, were hit by snowstorms last week.
The inadequacy of electricity complicated efforts to get passengers off planes. Such delays can be costly for airlines. Airlines can cheek fines of up to $27,500 per passenger if a domestic flight is on the tarmac longer than three hours.
“Any flees that exceed the tarmac delay rule will start race up big numbers,” said Gary Leff, a travel expert who writes the Think of from the Wing blog. He added that compensation given to travelers could be cast-off to lower fines.