Thousands of passengers were delayed or had their flights cancelled at Sydney Airport yesterday after a security screening device in T2 lost power, resulting in 16 passengers walking through unscreened.
The breach, which happened at approximately 3:15pm, caused airport security staff to clear the terminal and re-screen all passengers who had gone through security before the problem was detected, some of whom had already boarded their aircraft. The delays lead to 29 flight cancellations, with the impact felt the most by Jetstar with 15 flights cancelled affecting over 2000 passengers. Virgin Blue, QantasLink and Tiger Airways flights were also affected.
Airlines have since scheduled extra flights, offered refunds or provided overnight accommodation to some affected passengers, with terminal operations returning to normal at Sydney from today.
“Sydney Airport apologises to passengers for the inconvenience that this will cause and will be investigating the cause of the power loss to prevent a re-occurrence,” the airport said in a statement.
“Aviation security remains an absolute priority for Sydney Airport.”
