Northeast Blackout Destroys Schedules; Air Canada Worst Hit By Adrian Schofield August 18, 2003 A power blackout in the Northeast continued to play havoc with the operations of all major airlines Friday, and while some airlines like Continental recovered relatively quickly, Air Canada suffered the most and lost nearly a full day of operations. The blackout, which began Thursday at about 4 p.m., affected airports throughout the Northeast, with LaGuardia and Kennedy airports in New York still experiencing power outages late Friday afternoon. FAA estimated 700 flights were canceled Thursday, and the Friday total threatened to be much larger. All airport ground-stops had been lifted by Friday morning, but because airline operations and security screening were still hampered, service was limited to many airports. The air-traffic control system functioned smoothly on back-up power, and more than 2,000 flights that were in the air when the outage first struck landed safely. Secondary Power Failure It was a particularly frustrating day for Air Canada. After limited operations in the Northeast Thursday, the airline spent that night preparing to resume normal operations, only to lose its mainline operations center at about 7 a.m. Friday, when its secondary power supply failed. The airline was forced to cancel systemwide operations for most of the day, wiping out a large percentage of its daily schedule of about 700 flights. Air Canada's subsidiaries Jazz and Zip were not affected. The carrier restarted limited Canadian operations at 4 p.m., but not flights to U.S. destinations. A Continental spokeswoman said the airline's operations "rebounded very nicely" on Friday. To a large extent this was because the airline's hub at Newark recovered much more quickly than the other New York area airports. On Thursday Continental had 33 cancellations, and only 11 by 3p.m. on Friday. United also escaped relatively lightly, canceling 19 flights on Thursday and 40 through Friday afternoon. At the other end of the scale was American, which said its operations were still "heavily impacted" Friday, with at least 280 mainline cancellations, following 141 on Thursday. US Airways benefited from the fact that its Northeast hubs in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suffered no power loss, although its operations at LaGuardia were hit hard, according to spokesman David Castelveter. "Systemwide we are in really good shape, because our hubs were not affected," Castelveter said Friday. US Airways had 33 cancellations Thursday and another 91 by about 4 p.m. Friday, mostly attributable to LaGuardia. The airline had expected to resume full operations at LaGuardia by 3 p.m. Friday, but instead had to announce that it would not operate normally from the airport for the rest of the day. Only a few shuttle flights to Washington and Boston, and some mainline operations to New Orleans and the Caribbean were flown. Like most other carriers, US Airways was operating almost a full schedule at Detroit by Friday afternoon. FAA said Detroit and Cleveland operations were only down slightly by that time, but Cleveland was also being hit by bad weather. Continental was operating 90% of its schedule at Cleveland by mid-afternoon. Northwest had 216 cancellations Thursday, nearly all of them at its Detroit hub. Detroit was still causing problems for the airline Friday afternoon, as many employees and screeners were having trouble getting to work. Although Northwest's terminal had power, the rest of the airport did not, which interfered with service operations. A Northwest spokesman said the airline was flying in personnel from other airports. Delta canceled 64 flights Thursday and 155 as of 5 p.m. Friday. Although the airline operated flights from Atlanta to LaGuardia and Kennedy earlier in the day, all remaining flights on this route were canceled shortly after 4 p.m. Very few Delta flights left the New York airports for Atlanta. Not all airports in the Northeast were hit by the power blackout. Although it was in the area affected by the outages, Hartford Bradley Airport was able to operate its flights normally because of a co-generation power plant it opened last year. Two flights diverted from other airports were able to land at Bradley. Roger EWROPS