Sydney airport power failure 30th July

[Austman]

ABC news is reporting a power failure at Sydney airport that is affecting both domestic and international terminals. (that would be a BIG power failure...)

 

[Mal]

Yeah its a complete mess.

 

[samiam]

DOM looks fine

 

[Austman]

International only!

AAP
International Qantas flights are expected to be delayed for up to an hour at Sydney Airport because of a power outage.
Power at the international terminal was lost sometime after 10am (AEST) on Saturday, a Qantas spokeswoman told AAP.
"We don't know the cause of it. It's progressively being restored at the moment, she said."

 

[Blackadder]

Power outage delays Qantas flights | News.com.au

The Usual No News QF bash over this, I am sure other Int airlines suffered similar dealys

 

[Mal]

Yep typical qf bash.

 

[chris-syd]

Big issue with power as it was out at least 1 hour this morning.
I arrived at 1015 and no one could check in or go thru customs/security.

Took ages to open check in and they are checking bags and keeping them at the counters until security is backup and running.
I was in teh queue from 11am thru to 1.15pm.
At least the express path and security only took 15 mins.

Economy is a issue. Huge queues.

In the lounge now but not much time

 

[Mal]

I believe power was out from about 915 or so at int. They closed security then, checkin stopped, baggage stopped. Don't think things improved until at least 12. Massive clusterbuck all around.

 

[Blackadder]

Very thankful I am travelling to the US next Saturday and not today, booked on QF 107 which according to the QANTAS website was around a 1 hr 45 min delay.

 

[VHOEJ]

Sydney airport probably didn't mind -they would have made more money with the car parking, and they won't compensate the airlines for the delays either.

 

[thewinchester]

I believe power was out from about 915 or so at int. They closed security then, checkin stopped, baggage stopped. Don't think things improved until at least 12. Massive clusterbuck all around.

12 sounds about right, as I got back to T1 about that time, from T2 where I had the DOM agents issue my INT boarding pass on Liam R's suggestion, then had the QF F Check In staff issue the D sticker without any complaints. From there, entered the customs line (still back to row B) around the Express Pass area, and took about 15min to get from there, through immigration and security.

Thankfully D Lane was still kept open, and they started sending D Pax through aircrew/diplomat security lanes which made it even faster. General security lane by that point had already snaked through the ropes back to the primary line making for a 20min screening wait.

The only holdup was a crew of FA's from TG who took an age to recombibulate themselves and would not move their gear down the x-ray belt. Ended up politely pushing some items along so I could grab my stuff and keep moving. This gave the operator a good chuckle, as she knew exactly what and why.

All the QF staff were convivial and from what I saw working together to get things moving. Even some extra managers moving along the premium lanes to keep pax informed. Good job done in my view.

 

[cove]

Mrscove thinks the airport is run by complete wankers who pay themselves well for complete mediocrity. Not having back up power is just one more thing to add to their list!If they were not a monopoly it would not have come to this.They may love the idea of enhanced parking revenue.......did they reduce the charges for their power outage?

 

[drron]

Mrscove thinks the airport is run by complete wankers who pay themselves well for complete mediocrity. Not having back up power is just one more thing to add to their list!If they were not a monopoly it would not have come to this.They may love the idea of enhanced parking revenue.......did they reduce the charges for their power outage?

And I am agreement with mrscove
Of course though it was definitely QF's fault that there was no backup system!

 

[markis10]

Back ups for short circuits are not healthy options, my understanding of the failure yesterday was in fact it was a safety trip rather than a supply failure. Airports have plenty of backup gensets which in most cases are triplicated, and work so long as they have fuel .

 

[chris-syd]

Landed in DFW okay after the issues at SYD with the power outage but 3/4s the passengers with no baggage including me.
2-3 days without baggage is harsh!

At least Qantas will compensate with upto $100 for essentials!

 

[munitalP]

Back ups for short circuits are not healthy options, my understanding of the failure yesterday was in fact it was a safety trip rather than a supply failure. Airports have plenty of backup gensets which in most cases are triplicated, and work so long as they have fuel .

Having done a study for SACL a few years ago on their power network - they have a mixture of the old and the new, many transformers had an input (primary) voltage which was no longer Australian standard, this was balanced with new transformers with AS standard designs (11kV DYN11 FWIW) and in fact worked quite well - a good solid network, well maintained and stable.

I can assure anyone that unless there has been drastic changes since I conducted that study, Sydney airport has N-1 redundancy (generators and additional power circuits) across its entire network - they take keeping the power on quite seriously.

However, depending on the type of fault happening, especially on the high voltage network, regardless of their redundancy, the protection will not allow a reclose (of a circuit breaker) until the protection has been reset. If it is an earth fault, or differential protection trip (protection relay type), SACL will have their maintenance staff/contractors survey the cables and connections in the area where the protection saw the fault to give it a clean bill of health or replace/repair. With these types of faults, immediately re-energising circuits often leads to catastrophic failure which in many cases then leads to fire. This is a good example of an uncontrolled fault - this video (original) the fault exists for 3-4 minutes before the explosion, the fault is a cable fault at the attachment (bushing) to the transformer, the fault goes unchecked, then the grand fanale.. Im sure none of us would want this to happen in the basement of SYD! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZipeaAkuC0

Anyway, whatever did happen, they got it back in control quickly and importantly, safely.

 

[oz_mark]

Back ups for short circuits are not healthy options, my understanding of the failure yesterday was in fact it was a safety trip rather than a supply failure. Airports have plenty of backup gensets which in most cases are triplicated, and work so long as they have fuel .

Indeed. Having backup supply systems is one thing. Having completely redundant electrical distribution systems around buildings is another. If the fault is in the distribution, no amount of backup supplies is going to help.

 

[VHOEJ]

Landed in DFW okay after the issues at SYD with the power outage but 3/4s the passengers with no baggage including me.
2-3 days without baggage is harsh!

At least Qantas will compensate with upto $100 for essentials!

That is bad luck on your part - $100 for all those passengers is quite costly, all the airlines should get compo from Mac Bank for those sort of expenses and others incurred because of thier problem.

 

[Mal]

I believe many flights left without luggage. Hopefully the airlines have a compo clause.

I would write a complaint regarding the way syd handled the outage, but it would be useless. Syd is a pseudo monopoly and thus won't care.

 

[rechoboam]

Sydney airport probably didn't mind -they would have made more money with the car parking, and they won't compensate the airlines for the delays either.

I'm pretty sure that someone will cop a shellacking tomorrow morning despite the parking bonanza.