Tens of thousands of passengers suffered yesterday as a power cut at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport led to a partial shut-down.
Power was finalled restored, but more than 1,000 flights were cancelled with hundreds of more cancellations scheduled for today.
Passengers were left in darkened terminals or on board aircraft.
Many flights scheduled to arrive from other airports were being diverted elsewhere or held at their departure airport.
The airport confirmed it had suffered a power outage shortly after 1pm local time on Sunday and it was not restored until just before midnight.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines was forced to cancel 900 flights yesterday and a further 300 mainly inbound early morning services today.
The airport is the world’s busiest, handling more than 250,000 passengers and almost 2,500 flights every day.
Electricity supplier Georgia Power, said it believed a fire at an underground electrical facility was to blame for the outage. A piece of its switchgear could have failed and started the fire, causing cable damage.
Delta said: “Throughout the outage, Delta people at every level have been engaged to ensure customers are taken care of.
“Delta executives have been in touch with leaders at the Atlanta airport, the Atlanta city government and Georgia Power, while Delta’s volunteers has been supporting Atlanta frontline teams – from passing out refreshments to scouring the airport area for food to bring back to customers.
“Delta is reimbursing customers who needed to make hotel accommodations Sunday in Atlanta.”