The Healy family had hoped to spend Wednesday moving their son, Reed, to his new apartment in Wichita, Kansas.
Instead, they spent the day waiting in line for hours on end, chatting with airline representatives and chatting in the airport lobby after their 6:30 a.m. flight was delayed by more than 11 hours.
They hoped to reach their destination before midnight, when the rental car office at Wichita Airport closes.
“It’s annoying, but you’re kind of helpless about what you can do,” said Bill Healy.
Several flights were delayed or canceled after a “transformer problem” caused Buffalo Niagara International Airport to lose power for six hours early Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for the Niagara Border Transportation Authority said in an email.
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Genesee Street traffic lights were on and the “overcrowded” airport concourse was lit with back-up lights when the Hillys arrived around 5am and without self-service check-in kiosks, airport staff had to manually assist long lines of flyers.
“They’re uptight,” Audrey Healy said of the airport staff. Someone said: This is my last day today. “
Passengers waiting in long lines applauded when the airport’s main lights finally came back on, but it didn’t bring any delayed flights back up to speed.
“Once the power came back on, it didn’t really help anything,” Bill Healy said with a laugh.
The airport was running on backup power for several hours. Electricity was restored to the airport around 9 am
Power was restored to all but one customer in Cheektowaga as of 3 p.m., according to New York State Electric and Gas.
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