East Midlands Airport recovers from power outage
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Hundreds of airline passengers were stranded at East Midlands Airport on Saturday when flights were suspended for more than seven hours.
Airport authorities were forced to suspend operations following a main power outage at 0830 on Saturday. The facility shifted to back up power systems but these also failed, leaving management powerless to continue normal operations.
Five outgoing flights were transferred to Birmingham and Manchester airports before power was restored and flights resumed at 1600 on Saturday afternoon.
“Our main power supply failed and then we had a challenge with our back-up generator, which meant for a period of time we had no power at the airport,” head of customer services, Howard Ebison, told the BBC.
Ebison insists that all systems had been checked and maintained routinely, but it appears the backup power infrastructure was unable to cope with the stress of shouldering operations for a prolonged period.
“All our records show that our generators are spot-on in terms of the checks they have had, but when they are put under stress for a period of time that’s when you find out there may be an issue – something you just can’t foresee,” he added.
“Today’s events have been unfortunate and we will be conducting investigations to identify how we can avoid anything like this happening in the future.”
East Midlands Airport is located at Castle Donington in North West Leicestershire and is operated by Manchester Airports Group.
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