Sudden power outage creates ‘nightmare’ at Atlanta airport

ATLANTA — A sudden power outage brought the world’s busiest airport to a standstill yesterday, grounding more than 1,000 flights in Atlanta just days before the start of the Christmas travel rush.

Passengers at the airport were left in the dark when the lights went out at around 1 p.m. The outage halted all outgoing flights, and arriving planes were held on the ground at their point of departure. International flights were being diverted, officials said.

Delta passenger Emilia Duca, 32, was on her way to Wisconsin from Bogota, Colombia, when she got stuck in Atlanta. She said police made passengers who were in the baggage-claim area move to a higher floor. She said restaurants and shops were closed. Vending machines weren’t working.

“No one is saying anything official. We are stuck here,” she said. “It’s a nightmare.”

Delta, with its biggest hub operation in Atlanta, will be hardest hit. By evening, Delta had already canceled almost 800 of yesterday’s flights and another 250 for today, nearly all of them in Atlanta, according to tracking service FlightAware.com.

Robert Mann, an aviation consultant and former American Airlines executive, said it likely will be tomorrow before Delta’s operations in Atlanta return to normal, and for passengers “it could be most of the week” because there aren’t many open seats on other flights in the last week before Christmas.

While Delta was hit hardest by the outage, other airlines also canceled flights for the rest of yesterday. American Airlines canceled 24 departures and an equal number of arrivals, said spokesman Ross Feinstein.

The FAA said it would staff the airport control tower throughout the night so that it can handle flights once they resume.