Fiber line repaired; RDM flights return to normal

(Update: CenturyLink says fiber outage repaired early Thursday)

A fiber optic cable outage in the Redmond area knocked out Internet and phone lines at Redmond Municipal Airport on Wednesday, canceling two airlines’ departing flights for the rest of the day and creating long delays for at least some arrivals, officials said. The line was repaired and service restored early Thursday.

A CenturyLink fiber line was cut in the Redmond area by a contractor not working for the utility, affecting about 130 customers, said Kerry Zimmer, CenturyLink’s West Region marketing and public relations manager.

Zimmer said their techs were working to repair services but that restoration isn’t expected until between 10 p.m. and midnight. CenturyLink later said on their Oregon Twitter feed that it was going to take later, and they expected services to be restored by 2 a.m. A message posted around 5 a.m. indicated service was fully restored.

Airport spokeswoman Erinn Shaw said all outbound United and Delta flights were canceled, while a United flight from San Francisco was delayed from about 5:30 p.m. to an expected 8:04 p.m. arrival.

Officials said they initially were told the issues might not be resolved until 8 p.m. Airport operations manager Winton Platt said a small excavator apparently struck and brought down the fiber line from a pole near the railroad tracks along Highway 97 west of the airport.

“If you are booked on any flights out of RDM today or tonight, please contact your airline for more information on departures and delays,” the airport said.

Here are the numbers:

United 800- 241-6522

Delta 800-221-1212

American 800-433-7300

Alaska 800-252-7522

“Please also check in online and print your boarding passes from home or download your airline app and boarding pass to your phone, as the airline computers and kiosks are currently out of service,” the airport statement said.

You can check flight status updates at http://www.flyrdm.com/?Flight-Status