Dozens of interisland flights delayed by airport power outage

Hawaiian Airlines said it was close to clearing a daylong backlog of flight delays — caused by a three-hour airport power outage this morning — about 5 p.m.

Hawaiian Airlines spokesman Keoni Wagner said that 75 Hawaiian interisland flights, outbound and inbound, have been affected by the power disruption. The airline was nearly back on schedule at 5 p.m., he said.

State Department of Transportation crews restored electrical power to the Honolulu Airport Interisland Terminal about 7:30 this morning after a three-hour outage.

Hawaiian Airlines put into service two spare aircraft and has called in reserve flight crews in an effort to get flights back on schedule, Wagner said.

Flight delays ranged from six minutes to 2 and a half hours, Wagner said. In addition, the airline held back a flight to Los Angeles for about an hour to wait for connecting passengers, he said.

Daniel Meisenzahl, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said a breaker malfunction caused the power outage. He said the airport had completed testing its emergency electrical generation system at 4 this morning when the power went out in the Interisland Terminal. Other areas of the airport were not affected.

Meisenzahl said the doors to the jetways lock down without power. Crews managed to open the jetway doors manually so that flights could leave and passengers could disembark.

The power went out about 4:30 a.m.