Power cut at airport sends flight schedules haywire

Kolkata: A 90-minute power fault in a critical section of the domestic terminal during the morning rush sent airline schedules haywire on Friday.
By the time power was restored, most flights had been delayed by 30 minutes to an hour, triggering a ripple effect that caused delays on subsequent flights till late in the day.
Around 5.30 am, power suddenly went off in the ground floor security check area, leaving the doorframe metal detectors and cabin luggage X-ray machines inoperative. At the time, passengers of the Air India flight to Mumbai were in queue for security check.
When power restoration failed despite a flurry of phone calls, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) decided to shut down the security check facility on the ground floor and shift to the first floor that had power. With the ground-floor checkpoints inoperative, the additional load soon created bottlenecks at the checkpoints on the first floor.
Though the Air India flight was not delayed, as only 15 passengers were left for frisking when the power went off, subsequent flights were badly hit. A total of 2,000 passengers on 17 morning flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Port Blair and Ranchi were delayed.
11/10/08 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Oct 2008