Outage causes delays at Q-C airport

Font Size:

By Jennifer DeWitt | Monday, July 21, 2008 |

The Quad-City International Airport will deal with a second round of flight cancellations today as a result of complications caused by Monday’s power outage.

Like much of the Illinois Quad-Cities, the airport terminal was without electrical power after a severe thunderstorm rolled through the area. The situation forced the cancellation of flights Monday and into this morning.

Cathie Rochau, the airport’s marketing representative, said American Eagle canceled its last flight in to the Quad-Cities from Chicago on Monday, which meant it would not have a plane on the ground for its 6:30 a.m. departure today.

“There are a couple of carriers that are going to wait and see if the terminal gets power back on to decide on their flights,” she said Monday evening. Delta, Northwest Airlines and United Express all had canceled some late Monday flights. AirTran Airways did not cancel any of its flights.

“We believe we will have power restored yet this evening, which is different from what we were hearing earlier,” Rochau said. “We’re equivalent on MidAmerican Energy’s priority list as the hospitals.”

In addition to canceled flights, the lack of power caused long lines of passengers at the security checkpoints and ticket counters, where airline staff had to issue handwritten tickets because they did not have computer access. Representatives of the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, had to check each bag by hand.

“The checkpoint was running on generated power since mid-morning, and they’re processing people quite well, but they’re checking all baggage by hand,” she said.

Airport and airline staffs had to deal with limited lighting, no land-line telephone service and issues with restrooms. “The tower and everything from an airfield standpoint is able to function,” she said, adding that all the airfield lighting continued to operate.

“We did have some service at the public safety office for essential lines,” she said, adding that airlines relied on that option to receive faxes and conduct business throughout the day.

Delta, which had to cancel a flight to Atlanta, sent two busloads of passengers to the Peoria, Ill., airport. “Other more savvy travelers may have gotten on the phone and might have headed to another airport to catch a flight,” she said.

In addition to passenger woes, the airport had some minor structural damage left behind by the winds that were measured at one point at 92 mph. Rochau said some material was ripped off one of concourses and a garage door on a field maintenance building was damaged. There were no injuries.

She recommended that travelers with flights departing today call the airline’s 800 telephone number to determine the status of the flight. “It does help, if a person has power and the Internet, if they can check themselves in online before they come.”

Jennifer DeWitt can be contacted at (563) 383-2318 or jdewitt@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.