A power outage caused hundreds of flight delays in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Sunday, an event that reverberated throughout the nation's airports - including in Columbus.
A fire in an underground electrical facility brought the world's busiest airport to a standstill. Power wasn't restored until just after midnight, after thousands of passengers were stranded from canceled or delayed flights.
One of the first flights to enter John Glenn International Airport from Atlanta was a Southwest flight that came in at 10:05 a.m. Alexis Burks, who lives in Columbus, says she wasn’t sure when she’d be able to leave Atlanta.
“At first they had just kept delaying it. And then maybe after about three hours they just canceled all the flights,” Burks said. “Getting out of the airport was crazy, too, because the police had started blocking off streets, so a lot of people’s family members couldn’t come get them.”
She’s happy to be home now.
“Relieved. It was still frustrating because I was ready to get home because I’m not from Atlanta,” Burks said. “I didn’t have any family there, so it really felt like I didn’t have anywhere to go. But as soon as I got a hotel room I was relieved."
Power went out at the airport around 1 p.m. Sunday. Thousands of travelers waited on planes or in terminals while Georgia Power worked to restore power.
Meanwhile, flights coming into Atlanta were rerouted to other cities, and outgoing flights were stopped. It took hours for Atlanta to deplane all passengers already boarded onto planes.
Rachel Hojnacki sought out alternative modes of transportation just in case her Southwest flight were to be canceled.
“I even booked a bus out of Atlanta last night because I didn’t know when I went to bed at like 10 if I was gonna be able to get on this flight today because the power still wasn’t back on," she says.
According to the airport’s website, it serves about 275,000 people per day. But it could be days before Delta Airlines, which has its main hub in Atlanta, can resume normal operations.
