Power outage at Schiphol Airport resolved
Update 9:47 a.m. - Article updated after the power outage was resolved
Update 10:17 - Article updated to add statement by Schiphol in paragraph 2
After six days of mass cancellations, Schiphol Airport faced another setback on Thursday morning. A power outage hit the airport, but it has since been resolved. The outage started before 8:00 a.m. and continued until about 9:30 a.m. Whether it had any impact on air traffic is unclear.
"Schiphol experienced a brief power outage in Terminal 2 this morning. This caused the lights to go out briefly, temporarily preventing check-in. The outage was quickly resolved, and passengers can now check in normally again. We apologize for any inconvenience caused."
“This morning, there was a brief power outage at Schiphol Airport, in Terminal 2. This has now been resolved. There are long queues, but KLM is doing everything possible to ensure that departing passengers leave on time,” a KLM spokesperson told NL Times.
According to reporters at the scene, all screens at the airport were black, and long lines were forming. Travelers also seemed to be having problems checking into their flights. “They’re using terminals that don’t seem to have any power. Whether that’s actually the case everywhere is unclear,” one reporter told NH Nieuws.
No additional departing flights were cancelled on Thursday, aside from six scrapped before the day began. So far, 55 departures have faced delays. Early this morning, the site listed only a handful of delayed departures.
Sixty arriving flights were also cancelled before the day began, mostly from KLM. The airline told NL Times this was the result of aircraft not being able to leave Schiphol on Wednesday due to weather constraints. Another 69 flights set to arrive on Thursday were facing a range of delays from a few minutes to a few hours, though most of these were already expected by the end of Wednesday evening.
Winter weather, including strong winds from Storm Anna and four days of snow, forced airlines to cancel 3,500 flights to and from Schiphol since January 2, according to a review of data available from the airport’s website.
The power outage comes just as Schiphol was preparing to start recovering from the days of mass cancellations. The airport had said on Wednesday it was optimistic about the prospect of getting back on track on Thursday, with an expectation that the weather would be milder, especially during the morning and afternoon hours.
