After 11-hour outage, power restored at world's busiest airport in Atlanta

Power was fully restored post nearly an 11-hour outage at the world's busiest airport in Atlanta leaving scores of passengers stranded in terminals and in planes on the tarmac.

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta lost power shortly after 1 p.m. ET on Sunday leading to the cancellation of over 1,000 flights, reported CNN.

Georgia Power, which supplies the airport's electricity, stated that they believed a fire at an underground electrical facility was to be blamed for the outage.

While addressing the media, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on Sunday night stated, "We certainly understand that the outage has caused frustration and anger and we are doing everything that we can to get folks back home right away."

 

Atlanta's mayor confirmed the fire's cause was under investigation.

Atlanta is the heart of the US air transport system and according to flight tracking service FlightAware, the power outage led to 1,173 flight cancellations to and from Atlanta.

About 30,000 passengers were reportedly affected by the outage.