1,100 flights canceled as Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson Airport loses all power

A fire in underground tunnels led to a crippling power outage and total disruption of services at the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Airport, on Sunday. The outage began at 1.00 p.m. local time, and lasted for approximately eleven hours, with power restored just before midnight. The cause of the fire is, as yet, unknown, but Georgia Power has stated that its equipment — a piece of switchgear — located in an underground electrical facility, may have failed and started the fire.
According to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, not only did the fire substantially damage two electricity substations, but it also severely damaged the airport’s ‘redundant system’, which should have acted as a power backup. The consequences resulted in the cancelation of 1,180 flights to and from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, with the cancelation of a further 400 flights today (Monday), of which 300 were Delta Air Lines’ flights, Atlanta being the hub for the American carrier’s largest hub.
It is estimated that 30,000 passengers at the airport were immediately affected, while the broader reaching effect could see millions of passengers affected. TSA checkpoints re-opened at 3.30 a.m. to deal with the backlog of flights, but a dense fog advisory was in effect on Monday morning. Delta announced that it anticipated normal flight schedules would “return to normal by Monday afternoon.
Hartsfield-Jackson has been the world’s busiest airport since 1998, and currently 275,000 passengers pass though it every day. Serving 150 domestic destinations and 75 worldwide destinations, the airport is Georgia’s largest employer, with over 63,000 employees.