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 Close ||||| A traveler sleeps on a baggage carousel at Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017, in Atlanta. A sudden power outage at the airport on Sunday grounded scores of flights... (Associated Press) 
 
 A traveler sleeps on a baggage carousel at Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017, in Atlanta. A sudden power outage at the airport on Sunday grounded scores of flights and passengers during one of the busiest travel times of the year. (AP Photo/Branden Camp) (Associated Press) 
 
 ATLANTA (AP) — Minutes after its midnight deadline to get the electricity back on at the world's busiest airport, Georgia Power announced early Monday that power had been fully restored to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, where more than 1,000 flights were grounded just days before the start of the Christmas travel rush. 
 
 A sudden power outage caused by a fire in an underground electrical facility brought the airport to a standstill. 
 
 Georgia Power said on its Twitter page that "Power has been restored on all concourses. 5,000+ meals are being delivered to passengers. Trains will be operational soon." 
 
 Passengers at the airport were left in the dark when the lights went out at around 1 p.m. The outage halted all outgoing flights, and arriving planes were held on the ground at their point of departure. International flights were being diverted, officials said. 
 
 Mayor Kasim Reed tweeted Sunday night that all passengers had been safely deplaned. 
 
 The City of Atlanta said on its Twitter page that it would provide shuttle service to the Georgia Convention Center for travelers in need of a place to stay and Chick-fil-A would be provided. 
 
 Delta passenger Emilia Duca, 32, was on her way to Wisconsin from Bogota, Colombia, when she got stuck in Atlanta. She said police made passengers who were in the baggage-claim area move to a higher floor. She said restaurants and shops were closed. Vending machines weren't working. 
 
 "A lot of people are arriving, and no one is going out. No one is saying anything official. We are stuck here," she said. "It's a nightmare." 
 
 Adding to the nightmare are what some passengers said was a lack of information from airport officials and help from first responders to get the disabled and the elderly through the airport without the use of escalators and elevators. 
 
 "They had these elderly people, handicapped people lined up in wheelchairs, said stranded passenger Rutia Curry. "The people were helpless, they can't get down the stairs, it was just a nightmare." 
 
 Passenger James Beatty said there was no real method for evacuation. 
 
 "I mean there was 40 or 50 people per the terminal area that were confined to wheelchairs and some that couldn't get through the airport very well, some of them actually couldn't walk and there was no plan at all to get them out of here without any power." 
 
 Beatty said passengers carried those who used wheelchairs down stairs. 
 
 Delta, with its biggest hub operation in Atlanta, will be hardest hit. By evening, Delta had already cancelled almost 900 Sunday flights and another 300 on Monday, nearly all of them in Atlanta, according to tracking service FlightAware.com. 
 
 Delta customers flying to or from Atlanta can make a one-time change to travel plans without incurring a $200 change fee. The airline also encouraged travelers not to pick up their bags on Monday because of anticipated congestion at the airport. 
 
 Robert Mann, an aviation consultant and former American Airlines executive, said it likely will be Tuesday before Delta's operations in Atlanta return to normal, and for passengers "it could be most of the week" because there aren't many open seats on other flights in the last week before Christmas. 
 
 "Tomorrow is going to be a long and difficult day for everybody," Mann said. 
 
 One bit of good news, according to Mann: Delta has more spare planes and available crews in Atlanta than anywhere else, which will help it to recover. 
 
 Still, when flights at Atlanta were grounded for most of one day last spring, it took Delta five days — and about 4,000 cancelled flights — before it fully recovered. 
 
 Like Sunday's outage, that April storm hit Delta's largest hub at a busy travel time when there weren't many empty seats to accommodate customers from cancelled flights. At the time, CEO Ed Bastian vowed that Delta would make "significant improvements" to its system for scheduling and tracking aircraft crews to recover more quickly from disruptions. 
 
 Other airlines also canceled flights for the rest of Sunday. American Airlines canceled 24 departures and an equal number of arrivals, said spokesman Ross Feinstein. The airline also diverted three planes that were headed to Atlanta when the outage struck, sending them instead to Dallas, Nashville and back to Philadelphia. 
 
 The FAA said it would staff the airport control tower throughout the night so that it can handle flights once they resume. The FAA said the tower could operate normally but flights were affected because airport equipment in the terminals was not working. 
 
 According to a Georgia Power statement, a fire in an underground electrical facility may have been responsible for the outage. The cause of the fire was not known. 
 
 "No personnel or passengers were in danger at any time," the statement said. 
 
 No areas outside of the airport were affected by the power loss. The utility said that there are "many redundant systems in place" to ensure the power supply to the airport and that such outages at the airport "are very rare." 
 
 That wasn't enough to comfort Jeff Smith, 46, of Pittsburgh, who ended up stuck in a plane on the tarmac for three hours after it landed. 
 
 "This is the worst experience I've ever had at an airport," he said. 
 
 Sara Melillo, who was traveling to Pittsburgh from Kenya, where she lives with her husband, Greg Presto, to spend Christmas with his family were stuck on the tarmac for six hours. The couple had made stops in Nairobi and Amsterdam and landed shortly after the lights went out in Atlanta. 
 
 She said the pilot didn't have a lot of information for the travelers but the plane had air conditioning and attendants offered water and juice a few times. She described the Delta terminal as "big chaos" with not enough customer service for the hundreds of people trying to find a flight to their next destination and a place to sleep for the night. 
 
 With her new boarding pass handwritten and her bags still stuck on a plane, Melillo was hopeful that she and her husband would be able to get a flight in the morning to Pittsburgh, she said as she waited for an Uber to take them to a hotel. 
 
 Airport workers were distributing bottled water, and Dunkin' Donuts was giving out doughnuts. 
 
 Officer Lisa Bender of the Atlanta Police Department said officers were at the airport to help with crowd control and managing traffic around the airport. 
 
 At Southwest Airlines, about 70 Atlanta departures out of 120 scheduled for Sunday were cancelled, an airline spokesman said in an email. United Airlines and JetBlue Airways were among carriers reporting delays or cancellations. 
 
 Mozell Smith, 58, of Atlanta arrived at the airport hours after the electricity went off. He was headed to Las Vegas with a sister and a friend. 
 
 "This is terrible. I wish someone would've given us a heads-up before we got to the airport," he said. "I wish there would have been better communication." 
 
 American Airlines reported only a handful of diversions and cancellations because the carrier does not use Atlanta as a hub, airline spokeswoman Alexis Aran Coello. 
 
 Hartsfield-Jackson, which serves 104 million passengers a year, is the world's busiest airport, a distinction it has held since 1998. 
 
 The airport serves an average of 275,000 passengers daily, according to its website. Nearly 2,500 planes arrive and depart each day. 
 
 ___ 
 
 This story corrects Mozell Smith's age to 58. 
 
 ___ 
 
 AP Airlines Writer David Koenig in Dallas, Texas, contributed to the story. ||||| A passenger checking in at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on November 11, 2017. AP 
 
 Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport suffered a catastrophic power outage on Sunday. 
 
 The outage is believed to have been caused by a fire at an underground Georgia Power facility. 
 
 Power is expected to be restored by midnight local time. 
 
 More than 700 flights have been canceled as a result of the outage. 
 
 Flight operations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport have grounded to a halt after a suffering a massive power outage around 1 pm local time on Sunday. 
 
 The bustling airport that handles an average of more than 280,000 travelers a day has been plunged into pitch black darkness. 
 
 Footage captured by WSB-TV in Atlanta show airport officials making their way through darkened terminal buildings with only flashlights to guide them. 
 
 Georgia Power, the airport's utility provider, is on the scene and working to restore power by midnight tonight, the company said in a statement. 
 
 The company believes the outage was the result of a fire that caused extensive damage to one of its underground electrical facilities. No employees or passengers were in danger at any time, Georgia Power said. 
 
 Consequently, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued a ground stop for all aircraft bound for Atlanta. This means that planes headed for the airport will be held at their point of origination. While the control tower in Atlanta is operational, departing flights are delayed due to the power outage in the terminal, the FAA said in a statement. 
 
 Flights already en route to Atlanta have been diverted to alternate airports. 
 
 Delta Air Lines has, thus far, canceled more than 900 flights on Sunday as a result of the outage and is working to deplane those stuck on board its aircraft at the airport. The airline expects to cancel another 300 flights on Monday. Atlanta is Delta's home base from which it operates more than 1,000 departures a day to more than 200 destinations. 
 
 In a statement, the airline said: 
 
 "Delta customers scheduled to traverse Atlanta Monday are encouraged to check their flight status as approximately 300 flights will be canceled due to Sunday's power outage at the Atlanta airport affecting all airlines there. Delta also canceled approximately 900 mainline and Delta Connection flights Sunday and diverted 48 flights to alternate airports due to the nationwide groundstop for Atlanta-bound flights. The airline is working to reaccommodate impacted customers on alternate flights. Cancellations are designed, in part, to allow the operation to best reset Monday. Delta leaders have been working to support customers by coordinating with Atlanta airport officials and leaders at the City of Atlanta and Georgia Power. Delta customers are encouraged to check the status of their flight via the Fly Delta mobile app or delta.com before heading to the airport. Customers flying to, from or through Atlanta can make a one-time change to their travel plans. Details are available at delta.com. Delta has temporarily embargoed unaccompanied minors from traveling Monday due to the power outage. Unaccompanied minors who already began their travel Sunday may continue. The Atlanta Airport, along with Atlanta Police Department, is restricting the vehicles allowed to the terminal drop-off and pick-up area due to congestion.The Atlanta Airport is providing updates at http://www.atl.com/media-center/" 
 
 Southwest, Atlanta's second largest tenant, has canceled all of its remaining flights into and out of the airport on Sunday. American, United, and JetBlue have also canceled all inbound and outbound Atlanta flights, WSB-TV reported. 
 
 For passengers affected by the power outage, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, and United are offering travel waivers that will allow you to rebook on a later flight. 
 
 Here's what it looks like at the airport: ||||| 0 Former transportation secretary caught up in power outage chaos at Atlanta airport 
 
 ATLANTA - Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was one of thousands of people caught up in the massive power outage at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Sunday. 
 
 Foxx was named Transportation Secretary under President Barack Obama and served in the post from 2013 to 2017. 
 
 Foxx took to Twitter Sunday to express his frustration over the situation. 
 
 “Total and abject failure here at (the Atlanta) Airport today,” Foxx said in the first of a series of tweets. “There is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source. NONE!” 
 
 Total and abject failure here at ATL Airport today. I am stuck on @delta flight, passengers and crew tolerating it. But there is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source. NONE! #atlairport #delta — anthonyfoxx (@anthonyfoxx) December 17, 2017 
 
 Foxx blasted the airport over a lack of communication. 
 
 [PHOTOS: Power outage paralyzes Atlanta airport] 
 
 “Whatever the cause, it feels like this one was compounded by confusion and poor communication,” he said. 
 
 BTW, we have been sitting on Tarmac since approx. 2:20. Crew is doing all they can but this is insane. — anthonyfoxx (@anthonyfoxx) December 17, 2017 
 
 Just moved from tarmac to a ramp and awaiting details on whether we’ll take stairs or other means to de-plane. Now the airlines have a backlog problem to deal with. Anyone who gets to their destination tonight (as opposed to tomorrow) will be lucky. Power still out at Term C. — anthonyfoxx (@anthonyfoxx) December 17, 2017 
 
 We were waiting to de-plane at terminal C. We’re now moving to another terminal because C is apparently still dark. Still on plane for going on 5th hour. — anthonyfoxx (@anthonyfoxx) December 17, 2017 
 
 The outage was reported at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at 1:00 Sunday afternoon. Nearly six hours later, Georgia Power said the outage was caused by fire in an underground facility. It also damaged the backup system. 
 
 [READ: Passengers frustrated, confused by airport power outage: 'It's crazy in here'] 
 
 Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in a news conference late Sunday night that part of the delay in getting power restored was because power crews could not access the tunnels to get to the outage because they were filled with a poisonous gas. 
 
 Georgia Power said they expected to have all electricity restored by midnight. 
 
 © 2018 Cox Media Group.
– Power was finally restored to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport just after midnight Sunday—some 11 hours after the lights went out in the world's busiest airport. The massive power outage caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights, including 900 Delta flights, Business Insider reports. The airline says it expects to cancel another 300 flights at its hub Monday in the aftermath of the outage, which is believed to have been caused by a fire in an underground electrical facility. Travelers say there was chaos and confusion after the outage brought the airport to a sudden standstill, the AP reports. "This is the worst experience I've ever had at an airport," says passenger Jeff Smith, who was stuck on a plane for more than three hours after it landed. Georgia Power says it believes the "very rare" outage was the result of a fire started by an equipment failure, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. "This fire was located adjacent to redundant circuit cables and switching mechanisms serving the airport and those cables were damaged, resulting in the outage and loss of redundant service method," the utility said in a statement. WSB-TV reports that one of the thousands of passengers stranded Sunday was former Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who served from 2013 to 2017. "Total and abject failure here at ATL airport today," he tweeted. "There is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source. NONE!" (It took five days for Delta flights to get back to normal last year after an Atlanta outage caused a global systems failure.)