Live data from Hacker News

Atlanta airport loses power, trapping travelers in planes and terminals

nbcnews.com

1–10 of 11 posts

Re: Atlanta airport loses power, trapping travelers in planes and terminals

#5

How would the insurance work on something like this? Would the construction company which cut the line have to cover loss revenue for the entire airport? Airlines? Passengers?

The construction company would likely be liable in the end, with their liability insurance paying. If they properly arranged for utility location services and those failed to mark the conduit then that service might have liability instead.

Other non-liability insurance policies might apply as to the airport and airlines and would presumably have subrogation rights against the liable party.

Re: Atlanta airport loses power, trapping travelers in planes and terminals

#7
post #6

We have redundant power (coming in the building at 2 different spots) for data centers, why not for critical infra like airports? (let alone having, you know, a generator)

I'll answer your question with another question: how much money did they lose because of this power outage?

Until the money lost is greater than the costs associated with adding redundant, backed up power supplies, they probably won't be added.

Re: Atlanta airport loses power, trapping travelers in planes and terminals

#8

How would the insurance work on something like this? Would the construction company which cut the line have to cover loss revenue for the entire airport? Airlines? Passengers?

An acquaintance of mine works for a high precision concrete paving company. The specialize in airports and data centers.

Their contracts often specify a penalty rate for important data cables. Sometimes this would be $120,000 per minute that the cable is down. I think it was even an order of magnitude higher for some cables when they were working near Amazon’s data centers in Northern Virginia.

Given that it would usually take two hours for a cable to be repaired, a single hit would be millions to tens of millions of dollars in fees.

This resulted in a NASA like level of paperwork, checklists, and team communication before anyone so much as put a shovel into the ground on the worksite.

Re: Atlanta airport loses power, trapping travelers in planes and terminals

#9
post #6

We have redundant power (coming in the building at 2 different spots) for data centers, why not for critical infra like airports? (let alone having, you know, a generator)

I'll answer your question with another question: how much money did they lose because of this power outage? Until the money lost is greater than the costs associated with adding redundant, backed up power supplies, they probably won't be added.

It's a publicly owned and operated airport so at least in theory it isn't incentivized that way. It sure does make you scratch your head though... situations like this should be near impossible.
Post reply on HN