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Bloomberg
Delta Air Lines Inc. and other carriers worked to get thousands
of stranded passengers onto
planes after a major electrical
disruption in Atlanta crippled service at the world’s busiest hub, extending flight cancellations into a second day.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport still had 411 inbound and outbound cancellations on Monday after 1,183 the day before, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking service.
Delta, which dominates service at the Atlanta airport, reported
400 scrubbed flights on Monday. Southwest Airlines Co. said it was operating its full schedule after scrapping 70 flights on Sunday.
While most power was restored around midnight at the airport, some operations had yet to return fully as of 9:30 am.
The SkyTrain connecting the airport with an off-site rental car facility and the underground Plane Train linking concourses were both expected to begin running again around 10 am, airport spokesman Reese McCranie said.
The local utility in charge of the electricity supply, Georgia Power Co., said a fire caused “extensive damage†in an underground facility, though no passengers or workers were in any danger.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said the intensity of the fire damaged the switch that would have allowed the built-in backup power systems to take over.
Complicating matters further,
the heat and fumes in the underground tunnels prevented Georgia Power crews from starting work on repairs for some time and lengthened the disruption, he said at a news conference.
There is “no evidence to suggest the fire was caused deliberately,†Reed said.
‘Essential Activities’
Georgia Power said in a statement on Monday that all “essential activities†at the airport, including all concourses and flight operations, have power.
The electricity went out after
1 pm Sunday, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a stop on all flights heading to Hartsfield-Jackson.
Aircraft were held at their departure airports and planes in the air were diverted to other cities, the airport said.
At one point, Delta had almost 100 planes that were unable to park at gates because of the
power power failure, an airline spokesman said. Airlines were still retrieving bags misplaced in Sunday’s chaos.