Flying during the holidays is already a nightmare because of all the lines getting through security and how packed the flights are. Take Home Alone, for example, it shows how busy the airports are during this time of year. This holiday season something else happened; roughly 1,200 flights were canceled Sunday, December 17, 2017. This was due to a blackout at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The blackout was caused by “an electrical fire in a tunnel beneath the airport crippled both the main power system and its backup” (CNN Money). The blackout lasted for about 11 hours. This caused so many problems for one of the busiest airports in the country.
My family and I were flying from Chicago on Sunday, and we have to fly through ATL in order to get home because that’s where our connecting flight is. During this time the power outage had just occurred and ATL didn’t know when they would be up and running again. I’ve never heard or seen so many people yelling at flight attendants and those working the desks.
There was a serious problem with how the companies were handling the situation. No one knew that there was a power outage in Atlanta until three or four hours into the blackout. So there were about four hours wasted for us being at the Chicago airport due to the ATL blackout. We were stuck there for one more night, which in my opinion is ok because it’s not Atlanta and we weren’t with hundreds of people stuck in the airport due to the delays that led to cancelations.
Atlanta obviously wasn’t back on their game the day after the huge blackout and had about 400 cancellations that day due to pushbacks and weather in other cities. My family and I had finally made it to Atlanta hoping for a nice easy day of travel, but that wasn’t ahead of us. We got out of Chicago and were in Atlanta when all of a sudden we heard our flight to Florida was delayed. I looked at my mom and rolled my eyes saying, "this would happen to us".
Well, we carried on and were talking to all the people at our gate and we began to hear all the horror stories of the day before. They said that there were people everywhere, laying down sleeping, none of the restaurants or shops were open. There were tents outside for people to get food and drinks but they had to go out of security and no one knew when the lights would go back on.
After speaking to people our flight was finally announced that it would be “delayed” until 8 o’clock the next day! People on that flight had been trying to get home for two days along with us and were just as stressed as those dealing with the entire backlash from the blackout in Atlanta.
Day three of flying and we finally made it back home except our luggage was somewhere else and some of them were in Jacksonville while others were still in Atlanta getting caught up in the luggage debacle. When we walked into the Atlanta airport we could see thousands of bags everywhere due to the blackout, and on Wednesday, December 20, 2017, most people got their bags while others still haven’t.
According to CNN Money, Delta is asking Atlanta Airport, and the Georgia Power to reimburse them due to losing $50 Million. This whole entire situation has caused so many problems and showed those who fly every holiday how much of a true nightmare it can be.
Coming from myself, there was a crisis management aspect of this whole situation that could’ve been handled much better. I’ve never seen people so panicked for delayed and canceled flights like I have this past weekend. It was a sight to see, and one that should’ve been handled a lot better than it was. People should’ve been communicated with instead of finding out about the severity of the blackout hours later etc…
