After storms on August 1 and 2 caused a power blackout in the airport’s terminals, Perth Airport in Australia plans to review its backup power systems.
During the storm, the backup generation system for critical safety systems such as the runway lighting worked as planned, meaning that aircraft could continue to land safely throughout the event. However, the parts of the system that provide power to the terminals did not work as intended. The review of backup power systems will look through all issues to identify what could have been done better and to ensure the system remains fit for purpose. This will include whether there were options to work more closely with Western Power on the transition to backup power.
On August 3, Kevin Brown, CEO of Perth Airport, said, “The review will commence immediately to understand why parts of the airport’s backup generation system did not deploy as planned. Our first priority was the safety of passengers and workers in our terminals. We apologize for the inconvenience the power outage caused to passengers and we thank them for their patience and understanding that we were dealing with a unique and challenging weather event.
“We need to understand why some backup generation systems did not work as intended. The first priority yesterday was to get power restored and flights back in the air, and our team did a great job working through those challenges. We face a busy start this morning as we work with our airline partners to clear the backlog of delayed flights and we again thank passengers for their patience.”
