Perth Airport CEO Announces Thorough Review of Airport's Back-up Power System After Storms Blackout

Perth Airport CEO Kevin Brown has announced there will be a thorough review of the airport’s back-up power systems after Perth storms caused a power blackout to the airport’s terminals.

Mr Brown said the review would commence immediately to understand why parts of the airport’s back-up generation system did not deploy as planned.

“Our first priority was the safety of passengers and workers in our terminals,” Mr Brown said.

“We apologise for the inconvenience the power outage caused to passengers and we thank them for their patience and understanding that we were dealing with a unique and challenging weather event.

“The back-up generation system for critical safety systems such as the runway lighting worked as intended meaning that aircraft could continue to land safely throughout the event.

“Other parts of the back-up generation system that provide power to the terminals did not work as intended. We need to understand why that happened.

“The first priority yesterday was to get power restored and flights back in the air and our Team did a great job working through those challenges.

“The review of back-up power systems will look through all issues to identify what could have been done better and to ensure the system remains fit for purpose.

“This will include whether there were options to work more closely with Western Power on the transition to back-up power.

“We face a busy start this morning as we work with our airline partners to clear the backlog of delayed flights and we again thank passengers for their patience.”