A mechanical problem halted concourse trains at Denver International Airport for nearly two hours on Wednesday afternoon, backing up hundreds of travelers and forcing some to miss flights.
The breakdown started at 2:42 p.m., airport officials announced in a post on the social media site X. Travelers posted photos showing the disruptions with people waiting for the trains and frowning downward at their smartphones.
At 4 p.m., trains resumed operations at a limited capacity and became fully operational at about 4:30 p.m., airport officials said.
The unspecified mechanical problem “damaged a piece of the track,” DIA officials said in an email. “Technicians fixed the damaged piece in a little more than an hour. Trains were able to run during this time, but at limited capacity, which caused crowding at security checkpoints and on train platforms.”
The federal Transportation Security Administration added staffers at checkpoints to speed the flow of travelers. Airport officials said the bridge security checkpoint would stay open until 6:30 pm.
Airport officials said they did not know of any flights that were delayed because of the train breakdown.
For Sydney Balsamo and her two friends from Denver who were headed out for the Labor Day weekend, the delays hit first in a security line, lasting more than an hour, Balsamo said. Then they entered a packed train waiting area trying to reach Concourse C for their Southwest Airlines flight to Chicago, she said. They missed it, and then missed another hastily re-booked flight.
“We have now missed two flights,” Balsamo said around 4:40 p.m.
“But we are booked on a third. This has definitely changed our travel plans. We took off work. And now we are just going to sit in the airport for another five hours,” she said.
“The communication was really poor. We were informed trains were down. Then we heard from a couple of security agents they were going to be holding flights. Then we got notified by Southwest that our flight had departed.”
Trains were operating every 15 minutes instead of the usual 2 minutes, she said.
DIA’s south and west security checkpoint operations continued through the train disruption.
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Originally Published: August 28, 2024 at 4:14 p.m.
