Power Outage At World's Busiest Airport Leaves Passengers Stranded

New York: One of the heaviest travel weeks of the year began with the cancellation of hundreds of flights on Sunday at the world's busiest airport in Atlanta, where a power outage left passengers stranded in darkened terminals or in aircraft idling on tarmacs.

The outage paralyzed operations at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport through Sunday evening. Even as power was being restored, the incident continued to wreck havoc on holiday travel plans for thousands of people affected by airline cancellations extending into Monday.

Delta said it was cancelling some 300 flights on Monday, on top of the 900 Sunday cancellations as a result of the Atlanta outage. United Air Lines also warned on social media that travel on Monday may be affected.

The incident led the Federal Aviation Administration to ground flights bound for Atlanta. American Airlines and Southwest Airlines were also among the major carriers that suspended operations at the airport on Sunday.

All passengers had safely disembarked aircraft by approximately 10 p.m. EST, or nine hours after the outage began, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said on Twitter.

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The FAA said air traffic control remained fully staffed, with the airport open and accepting general aviation and cargo operations. It expected commercial traffic to resume on Monday.

Reed told reporters earlier in the evening that the airport was expected to be fully operational again by midnight. The city was providing shelter to stranded passengers at the Georgia International Convention Center.

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"We're just focusing on the comfort of our passengers," Reed said at a news conference. "We know they have had a very very long and difficult day."

Georgia Power, the utility that provides electricity to the sprawling airport, said the failure was linked to a fire in an underground electrical facility which damaged substations serving Hartsfield. The intensity of the blaze damaged access to a backup system, Reed told reporters, adding that the cause remained unknown.

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Photos and videos posted on social media showed passengers huddled in partial darkness inside crowded terminals.

"Stuck on a plane at Atlanta Airport as the power is out there ... bedlam inside and boredom out here!" Jack Harris wrote on Twitter.

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For all carriers, nearly 700 flights scheduled to fly out of Hartsfield, or 60 percent, were canceled on Sunday as of 10:30 p.m. EST, while 477 of all scheduled inbound flights were scratched, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking service.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)