Darkness at IGI as power trips

The domestic arrival hall of the IGI Airport faced a blackout for nearly 40 minutes late Thursday evening as power tripped on two occasions. Though there was little trouble inside the airport,thanks to the backup,there was complete darkness outside the airport around 9.30 pm.

“I had come around 9 pm to receive a friend and was waiting outside when there was a powercut at 9.30 pm,” said Ananya Singh,whose friend arrived on a 9.50 pm Spicejet flight from Bangalore. “There was complete darkness both in and outside the arrival hall for a few minutes,after which supply inside the terminal was restored with backup. But it remained dark outside.” While power was back after 10 minutes the first time,the second power failure around 10 pm lasted about half-an-hour,it was informed.

Sources said the flight information display system did not function. Arun Arora,spokesperson for the airport operators DIAL,accepted the power failure but said,“If there’s a supply disruption from the grid,we have sufficient backup power so that passenger services do not suffer.”

In May,a four-hour powercut at the international terminal had led to complete chaos as even the power backup suffered a technical failure.