— anthonyfoxx (@anthonyfoxx) December 17, 2017 
 
 The outage was reported at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at 1:00 Sunday afternoon.  0 Former transportation secretary caught up in power outage chaos at Atlanta airport 
 
 ATLANTA - Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was one of thousands of people caught up in the massive power outage at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Sunday. Flight operations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport have grounded to a halt after a suffering a massive power outage around 1 pm local time on Sunday. (AP Photo/Branden Camp) (Associated Press) 
 
 ATLANTA (AP) — Minutes after its midnight deadline to get the electricity back on at the world's busiest airport, Georgia Power announced early Monday that power had been fully restored to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, where more than 1,000 flights were grounded just days before the start of the Christmas travel rush. The company believes the outage was the result of a fire that caused extensive damage to one of its underground electrical facilities. Georgia Power, the airport's utility provider, is on the scene and working to restore power by midnight tonight, the company said in a statement. The outage halted all outgoing flights, and arriving planes were held on the ground at their point of departure. Flights already en route to Atlanta have been diverted to alternate airports. [READ: Passengers frustrated, confused by airport power outage: 'It's crazy in here'] 
 
 Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in a news conference late Sunday night that part of the delay in getting power restored was because power crews could not access the tunnels to get to the outage because they were filled with a poisonous gas. "A lot of people are arriving, and no one is going out. I am stuck on @delta flight, passengers and crew tolerating it. By evening, Delta had already cancelled almost 900 Sunday flights and another 300 on Monday, nearly all of them in Atlanta, according to tracking service FlightAware.com. Delta customers flying to or from Atlanta can make a one-time change to travel plans without incurring a $200 change fee. One bit of good news, according to Mann: Delta has more spare planes and available crews in Atlanta than anywhere else, which will help it to recover. In a statement, the airline said: 
 
 "Delta customers scheduled to traverse Atlanta Monday are encouraged to check their flight status as approximately 300 flights will be canceled due to Sunday's power outage at the Atlanta airport affecting all airlines there. While the control tower in Atlanta is operational, departing flights are delayed due to the power outage in the terminal, the FAA said in a statement. [PHOTOS: Power outage paralyzes Atlanta airport] 
 
 “Whatever the cause, it feels like this one was compounded by confusion and poor communication,” he said. "No personnel or passengers were in danger at any time," the statement said. American, United, and JetBlue have also canceled all inbound and outbound Atlanta flights, WSB-TV reported.
– Power was finally restored to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport just after midnight Sunday—some 11 hours after the lights went out in the world's busiest airport. The massive power outage caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights, including 900 Delta flights, Business Insider reports. The airline says it expects to cancel another 300 flights at its hub Monday in the aftermath of the outage, which is believed to have been caused by a fire in an underground electrical facility. Travelers say there was chaos and confusion after the outage brought the airport to a sudden standstill, the AP reports. "This is the worst experience I've ever had at an airport," says passenger Jeff Smith, who was stuck on a plane for more than three hours after it landed. Georgia Power says it believes the "very rare" outage was the result of a fire started by an equipment failure, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. "This fire was located adjacent to redundant circuit cables and switching mechanisms serving the airport and those cables were damaged, resulting in the outage and loss of redundant service method," the utility said in a statement. WSB-TV reports that one of the thousands of passengers stranded Sunday was former Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who served from 2013 to 2017. "Total and abject failure here at ATL airport today," he tweeted. "There is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source. NONE!" (It took five days for Delta flights to get back to normal last year after an Atlanta outage caused a global systems failure.)