Continental Chaos Power Outage Forces Massive Flight Delays

The Associated Press H O U S T O N, Sept. 13  Hundreds of Continental flights were delayed Tuesday evening when a temporary power outage at the carriers main operations center scrambled key computers handling the flow of air traffic.

The power interruption was expected to impact some 300-400 flights across the country. It happened after a back-up power supply was shut down by fire department personnel as a safety precaution, according to a release issued by Continental. The airline said the power was lost to its System Operations Coordination Center at its Houston headquarters. The shutdown happened at about 5 p.m. CDT and temporarily prevented the carrier from dispatching flights.

Computer Problem Fixed At one Continental hub, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the glitch caused major delays till about 8 p.m., when the computer problem was fixed. It caused problems for us because we had planes coming in and nowhwere to put them, said airport spokesman Ernie DeSoto. Flights were coming, but we couldnt pull planes out of the gates. Continental also has hubs at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and at Newark International Airport in New Jersey. The airline is implementing back-up procedures that it expects will allow it to resume operations later tonight, the Continental release said.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/airline_delays000913.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 13, 2000