Power has been restored at La Guardia Airport after an outage led Delta Air Lines to cancel 119 flights on Friday morning, according to the facility’s operator.
Contractors performing work at La Guardia hit power lines while digging, knocking out power to portions of Terminal C around 4:30 a.m., said a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
With the help of backup generators, electricity service had been restored by around 10:15 a.m. and operations were resuming with delays, the spokeswoman said.
The outage disrupted travel for passengers. At the airport’s Delta terminal, the line to speak to agents stretched dozens deep and an attendant said she had never seen such a long queue.
Airport workers were inundated with inquiries from confused passengers, and boards listing arrivals and departures showed blocks of canceled flights. Eventually some workers started giving out water bottles to people on line.