7-hour Airport blackout caps Black Weekend

POWER  was restored to Tocumen International airport a t 11.55 am on Monday, September 18, after a seven-hour outage

The shutdown  came only hours after the Tourism Authority (ATP) was celebrating the success of Panama Black Weekend which brought thousands of visitors to the country on shopping expeditions, and filled the city’s hotels.

Tocumen is regarded as the “Hub of the Americas” operating flights to and from more than 90 cities in the Americas and Europe, covering much of Latin America and is the main hub of Copa Airlines, as well as serving as a Star Alliance hub for Latin America and the Caribbean.

During the outage, Copa Airlines canceled all flights up to 12.30 p.m.

As hundreds of frustrated passenger stood in lines,    ground personnel with monitors off struggled to process luggage manually.

Although  power was  back on  in the afternoon, airport authorities  warned that work still has to be done to completely normalize operations, affected by serious electrical faults

Meanwhile, passengers are advised to call their airlines to reschedule departures from the country.

A fleet of buses ferried passengers who had missed connecting flights, to local hotels.

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