Atlanta Airport Power Restored After Fire, Food Delivered

ATLANTA, GA — A fire at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport appears to have been the cause of a power outage that canceled flights and darkened the world's busiest airport for roughly 11 hours on Sunday. Power at the airport, where stranded holiday-season travelers were reportedly using cellphones to light their way through terminals, was slowing restored Sunday night, according to officials.

Atlanta Airport's said via Twitter about midnight that power had been restored on all concourses. More than 5,000 meals were being delivered to passengers. Trains will be operational soon.

In a news release Sunday evening, Georgia Power said the fire "caused extensive damage" in an underground Georgia Power facility. The blaze had to be extinguished by fire crews before Georgia Power workers could enter the facility to assess damage and begin fixing it.

"The event impacted not only the underground facilities, but also substations serving the airport and, while the cause is not yet known, Georgia Power's system responded by isolating areas where equipment wasn't operating correctly to ensure safety and minimize damage," the news release said. "No personnel or passengers were in danger at any time."

Shortly after 11 p.m. the airport said via Twitter that power was back on in Atrium and Concourses T, A and B. "Repair efforts are well underway at this time. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to restore power as quickly and safely as possible," airport officials said.

Stranded passengers could stay overnight at the Georgia International Convention Center and the city will provide shuttle services for anyone who needs a place to stay for the night. Chick-fil-A will provide food for passengers.

At about 7:30 p.m., Betsy Klein, a CNN reporter stuck for hours on a plane at the airport, said on Twitter that her flight's pilot said power had been restored at terminals E and F. Shortly afterward, the airport confirmed on its Twitter account that power on Concourse F was back on.

The outage, which started shortly after 1 p.m., canceled all flights both across the country and internationally that were headed into the airport. The earliest a plane is likely to take off for Atlanta will be 7 p.m. ET Monday, according to the FlightAware website.

Federal officials said international flights were told to land at other airports, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida, while passengers stuck on planes at the Atlanta airport took to Twitter to demand they be let off. Crews used mobile staircases to get some people off planes.

On Twitter Sunday afternoon, the airport said a power outage "has impacted several areas in the airport" and that officials were working to fix it.

The Federal Aviation Administration had set a ground stop for flights into Hartsfield-Jackson Sunday afternoon due to the outage. That means all flights to Atlanta were being held at their departure points nationwide, now until Monday evening unless things improve.

FlightRadar24 says that more than 600 flights to and from Atlanta have been canceled because of the power outage at the airport. FedEx, UPS, and other cargo airlines at nearby cargo facilities are still operating.

International arriving flights that were in the air when the airport lost power were diverted to other airports, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol office said on Twitter.

Atlanta Airport officials urged employees and passengers to follow the facility on Twitter for updates; passengers should check with their airline for flight updates.

The Atlanta Police Department said this afternoon that it sent extra officers to assist with crowds and traffic during the power outage. An American Airlines spokesperson told WSB-TV that evacuations are underway at the airport; police asked people to stay away from the airport because of the evacuations.

As darkness descended on the area Sunday evening, travelers stuck inside the airport reportedly were milling around in the dark, many walking around trying to get cellphone signals. With the smell of smoke wafting through some areas, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on people following the lights of cellphones from concourse to concourse in hopes of getting out.

On the airport's Facebook page, unhappy passengers and their families vented over what customers called a lack of an update on the power problem or a timetable for getting people off planes.

"My parents told me that they were deplaned as their 3 hour tarmac limit expired and are now standing out in the freezing cold rain," wrote Facebook user Jaclyn Burks. "That’s pretty inhumane if you ask me Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport."

An editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who was on a plane sitting on the tarmac told the newspaper that after two hours, crews brought a ladder and started getting people off the plane about 3:40 p.m.

And passenger Olivia Dorfman told the AJC by phone she was about to board a flight when the power went out and smoke filled the area. Airport workers at times tried to usher passengers toward the smoky area and away from it. “This has been very bizarre,” she told the newspaper. “No one seems to know what they’re doing.”

Delta Airlines, which is based in Atlanta, says it has cancelled all remaining operations for Sunday, Dec. 17, and has waived its rebooking fee. Passengers who want to cancel a trip because of the outage and delays are entitled to a refund for the unused portion of your ticket.

Southwest Airlines has also canceled all flights to Atlanta for Sunday.

On Twitter, air passengers debated whether the Atlanta airport has generators for backup, and if not why the world's busiest airport is without them. Others suggested solar panels should be installed, and some made fun of the situation, wondering if it was a plot to keep Falcons' opponents out of town or the next installment in the "Die Hard" movie franchise.

In its release, Georgia Power said it has "many redundant systems in place to ensure reliability for the airport and its millions of travelers — power outages affecting the airport are very rare.

Departures from Atlanta were delayed an average of 1 hour and 20 minutes as of 7 p.m., according to FlightAware.

Since 1998, Hartsfield-Jackson has been the busiest airport in the world. Handling 275,000 passengers a day, it serves 150 U.S. destinations and more than 75 international destinations in 50 countries. There are, on average, nearly 2,500 arrivals and departures there every day.

PHOTO: Passengers rest behind the ticket counter after the lights went out at Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017, in Atlanta. A sudden power outage at the airport on Sunday grounded scores of flights and passengers during one of the busiest travel times of the year. (AP Photo/Branden Camp)

Photo courtesy Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport