‘Power bump’ strands thousands at Phoenix airport (PHOTO, VIDEOS)

8 Nov, 2021 17:34 / Updated 3 years ago

Passengers at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Arizona were literally left in the dark when power went out at two of the terminals. American Airlines and Southwest are reporting delays as they try to get computers back online.

A “partial power outage” affected Sky Harbor terminals 3 and 4 on Monday morning, starting at 8:05 am local time. The airport initially reported a “power bump,” while one Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent told a local journalist passing through that a transformer explosion was to blame.

The outage has particularly impacted American and Southwest airlines, which operate out of the affected terminals. Power has since been restored to Terminal 3, though Terminal 4 is still affected. Southwest reportedly resorted to checking passengers in manually, as no phone or internet service was available.

As of 10 am local time, work was still ongoing to restore power to Terminal 4, according to Arizona Public Service (APS). The utility company said “a piece of electrical equipment failed” and that one of their workers suffered non-life-threatening injuries. 

Sky Harbor (PHX) is the eighth-busiest US airport, serving over 45 million passengers a year before the Covid-19 pandemic. Southwest is based at PHX, while American Airlines uses it as a regional hub.

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