Runway lighting failure causes five-hour Avelo Airlines delays, diversions at Tweed New Haven Airport

Avelo Airlines flights at Tweed New Haven Airport were delayed roughly five hours on Tuesday, September 15, after runway safety lights were found malfunctioning during routine checks the previous afternoon, according to airport spokesman Tom Cavaliere Jr. Several Monday-night flights diverted to Bradley International Airport and to Albany, New York, and Connecticut Airport Authority spokesperson Brian Spyros said one flight had also diverted from Tweed to Bradley on Sunday. Four Monday-evening diversions were expected to return to Tweed on Tuesday, in some cases with passengers still aboard, to reposition aircraft for scheduled departures. The runway lights were repaired by late Tuesday morning, and normal operations resumed.

Avelo spokeswoman Courtney Goff said customers whose flights diverted and terminated at Bradley would receive a full refund for the affected segment, while passengers diverted to Albany were given hotels, meal vouchers, and the option to cancel for a refund, with those flights expected to continue on to Tweed on Tuesday. Tuesday is Tweed's lightest day for commercial traffic, with only a few Avelo flights scheduled and no Breeze Airways flights, which limited the scale of the disruption.

The lighting problem followed separate delays from flooding inside and outside Tweed's departure terminal during heavy rain on Sunday, when the airport received just under four inches of rain in two hours. A barrier system did not prevent a couple of inches of water from entering the terminal, prompting a shutdown of a couple of hours, though arriving flights continued to be accepted; flooding cleared by Monday morning. The runway-lighting issue also postponed Tweed's FAA-mandated triennial full-scale emergency response exercise, originally scheduled for Tuesday, which will now take place on September 22.