Power has been restored to the world's busiest airport in Atlanta after a sudden outage that grounded hundreds of flights. Passengers have been stranded in darkened terminals or in planes idling on the tarmac.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/FRE171034 AP/B. Camp
Advertisement
Power returned to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the US state of Georgia just before midnight, officials said Monday.
"Power has been restored on all concourses. 5,000+ meals are being delivered to passengers. Trains will be operational soon," the world's busiest airport announced on its Twitter page.
A power blackout on Sunday afternoon brought operations to a standstill, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
Flightradar24, a site that monitors air travel data, said over 1,000 flights in and out of Atlanta were canceled and that another 200 had been "proactively canceled for Monday." The outage also led to delays at other airports, where Atlanta-bound planes were held on the ground.
Various theories for the origin of the outage have circulated on social media, but the airport said "the cause of the incident remains under investigation."
Georgia Power said in a statement that a fire in an underground electrical facility had damaged substations serving the airport. It added that the cause of the blaze was unknown.
Stranded passengers wait for the lights to returnImage: picture alliance/dpa/AP Photo/S. Schaefer
Passengers stranded
Stranded passengers have posted pictures and videos on social media showing hundreds of people waiting in lines and walking through darkened hallways at the massive airport.
Some were reporting that people were not yet being allowed to leave the airport or were stuck sitting on idling planes.
"A lot of people are arriving, and no one is going out. No one is saying anything official. We are stuck here," Delta airlines passenger Emilia Duca told The Associated Press. "It's a nightmare."
The power outage hit just days before the start of the Christmas travel rush.
Air traffic booming around the world
Air traffic is on the rise worldwide, picking up by 6.3 percent in 2016. But not all carriers and airports have profited from the trend, or at least not to the same extent. Often, big money is made elsewhere.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Meissner
Crowded skies
More passengers mean more aircraft in use. Asia's fleet for instance is set to be twice as big by 2035 to total about 17,000 planes. North America will have some 9,800 aircraft and Europe's about 7,900 (up from 4,610 today).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Becker
Pilots in high demand
More planes in use mean more pilots are needed. Boeing reckons that about 617,000 new pilots will have to be recruited by 2035, particularly in Asia. On top of that, there's a need for 679,000 new maintenance staff and 814,000 additional flight assistants, says Boeing. Airbus sees a need for 560,000 new pilots.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/G. Bouys
The biggest hubs
Europe's biggest hubs in terms of passenger numbers are London Heathrow, Paris-Charles De Gaulle and Frankfurt in Germany, handling between 73 million and 64 million passengers. In Frankfurt, over 2 million tons of cargo were dealt with in 2014. The world's largest airport in Atlanta in the US boasted 100 million passengers in 2015.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/F. Rumpenhorst
Budget airlines to the rescue
Growth at German aviation hubs is not so much a result of booming German carriers. It's more about the strength of foreign airlines. The number of German carriers' take-offs has shrunk steadily over the past six years. By contrast, no-frills competitors such as Ryanair and Easyjet have seen a 14-percent rise in take-offs from German airports.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
Largest strike action in history
German flagship carrier Lufthansa was able to log 1.8 billion euros ($1.94 billion) in profit last year, beating results from a year earlier and despite a series of strikes crippling the airline. Industrial action organized by the VC pilots' union since 2014 has cost Lufthansa about half a billion euros. Meanwhile, management and pilots have struck a deal in principle.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Jensen
The biggest earners
Aviation is a lucrative business, but some market players do better than others. While airlines tend to get a 4-percent yield on their invested capital, German airport operators and plane manufacturers secure between 6 and 7 percent. Doing even better are air traffic control, haulers and booking services, which - says a McKinsey study - can get as much as 20 percent in proceeds from capital.
Image: picture-alliance/ dpa
What's in store for us?
Here you are: beds for tired travelers, massagers and generous legroom, childcare services and a bar plus shower cabinets to make you feel alright. This is what passengers hope they will see on board in the not-too-distant future. Should this become a reality, passenger numbers are bound to soar further.
