Sunday night travelers at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport suddenly found themselves in the dark when a power outage cut electricity to ticket counters, TSA screening lanes and baggage-handling systems. For roughly three hours, crews scrambled to restore power and bring key airport systems back online.
Terminals 1 and 2 took the worst of it. The outage hit at about 9:30 p.m., shutting down critical check-in and security equipment and triggering temporary delays for some flights. Hawaiian Airlines told KHON2 the timing, outside peak hours, helped limit the fallout, with only a few delays and most services recovering after around three hours.
The city’s Transportation Department said it is working with Hawaiian Electric to figure out what caused the blackout and how to reset emergency power more effectively if it happens again, according to KHON2. Airport officials stressed that the outage hit terminal systems, not the airfield itself, and that regular operations resumed once the lights came back on.
Airport Backup Power And Past Tests
The Hawaii Department of Transportation has previously coordinated planned outages and emergency generator tests at HNL with Hawaiian Electric to confirm that backup systems work and to keep flight disruptions to a minimum. In Hawaii Department of Transportation notices about scheduled power tests, the agency details how it teams up with the utility to time overnight work so that passenger impact stays as low as possible.
What Travelers Should Know
Officials said the blackout led to only limited schedule disruptions, but anyone flying soon is still urged to double-check flight status with their airline before heading to the airport. Airlines and airport officials plan to share updates as crews and utility partners finish reviewing exactly what went wrong…