PHOENIX — Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport says a planned air-conditioning outage impacted the airport Wednesday morning ahead of record-breaking heat.
ABC15 learned that travelers passing through the airport on Wednesday were met by workers who told them the A/C system was not operating. One passenger told ABC15 that temperatures inside the airport were more uncomfortable than usual.
Sky Harbor officials sent a statement to ABC15 about the incident, saying:
"This was planned maintenance involving deactivating an a/c unit that went slightly over schedule and temps rose to about 83 in Terminal 4. The maintenance was completed, and as of about 5 a.m., the temperature was starting to recover. No impact to airport operations."
ABC15 spoke to people at the airport, including some who noticed right away that the inside temperature was warmer than usual. Others took the inconvenience in stride, saying the heat is expected since it is July in Phoenix.
Wednesday's high in Phoenix is set to reach 117º, matching 2025's hottest day yet. It would break the daily record of 116º set in 2024.
Later in the morning, long lines had formed before security checkpoints, with some of the checkpoints being shut down.
Sky Harbor officials said: "The TSA Security Checkpoints were consolidated to two open checkpoints earlier this morning to maximize their staffing and that led to some delays but all checkpoints are open."
Officials with TSA sent the following information to ABC15:
Due to Sky Harbor International Airport A/C being inoperative this morning at Terminal 4; TSA was only able to use two of the four passenger screening checkpoints due to high temperatures (90 degrees) and the safety of the workforce. There were two hours (0700 and 0800 hour) which Terminal Four-Checkpoint C had a wait time of 49 minutes in Standard Screening and 15 minutes in Precheck.
