Report: 321 power outages reported at 24 U.S. commercial airports over 8-year period

WASHINGTON — As millions of Americans are expected to travel this Labor Day a weekend, a watchdog report is shedding light on power outages at U.S. commercial airports and the steps being taken to prevent them from happening.

The findings from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) say 24 commercial service airports reported experiencing a total of 321 total electrical power outages lasting five minutes or longer from 2015 through 2022.

Eleven of the airports reported having six or more outages over this timeframe.

The outages disrupted a range of services for passengers.

“The most common activity cited were the baggage handling and concessions,” said Heather Krause, a Director for GAO’s Physical Infrastructure team. “But there were instances where gate and boarding, as well as check-in, communications and flight delays and cancelations were impacted as well.”

Passengers at the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International, experienced the consequences of a power outage firsthand in December 2017.

That outage lasted nearly 12 hours and the GAO report said it led to roughly 1,200 flight cancelations and cost an airline $50 million.

The report said airports and the federal government are taking steps to improve electrical systems to prevent these kinds of outages.

In some cases that includes installing equipment to generate additional backup power and making improvements to the electrical infrastructure.

The report also points out the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is assisting these airports and has grant programs available for infrastructure upgrades.

“Ensuring the resilience of airports’ electrical power systems is a shared responsibility between FAA and the airports,” said Krause. “Both are taking steps to improve resilience.”

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