BLACKOUT MAYHEM AT ATLANTA AIRPORT

More than 1,000 flights cancelled at start of year’s heaviest travel weeks

ATLANTA people hit by airline cancellations extending into yesterday.

Delta said it was cancelling about 300 flights yesterday, on top of the 900 Sunday cancellations as a result of the outage.

United Air Lines also warned on social media that travel yesterday might be affected.

The incident led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground flights bound for Atlanta.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines were among major carriers that suspended operations at the airport on Sunday.

Georgia Power, the utility that provides electricity to the sprawling airport, said the failure was linked to a fire in an underground facility that damaged substations serving Hartsfield.

The blaze, possibly started when a piece of gear failed, damaged access to a back-up system, the company said.

All passengers safely disembarked from aircraft by approximately 10pm, or nine hours after the outage began, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said on Twitter.

Photo and videos posted on social media showed passengers huddled in partial darkness inside crowded terminals. Some said they sat on planes for hours.

FAA said it was staffed to handle the expected resumption of commercial traffic yesterday.

By early yesterday, airport officials said on social media that they had served more than 5,000 meals for passengers.

“We’re just focusing on the comfort of our passengers,” Reed told a news conference on Sunday. “We know they have had a very, very long and difficult day.”

For all carriers, more than 1,170 flights in or out of Hartsfield were scratched on Sunday, airline tracking service FlightAware said.

The airport serves an average 275,000 passengers each day, according to its website. Reuters