I arrived at Luís Eduardo Magalhães International Airport in Salvador, Brazil, four hours before my flight. In the LATAM Airlines check-in area, I was greeted by a line longer than a Supreme sneaker drop, unmoving. But no: this was the “Bag Drop” line, each glassy-eyed traveler staring into the void had a baggage tag firmly secured on their suitcases. As ground staff scurried by, avoiding eye contact, people screamed out various things to the effect of “what the hell is going on?”What was going on was a total meltdown. Earlier that day a power surge on the runway had shut down all operations and tragically killed an engineer working to fix it.

Source: International New York Times July 16, 2019 09:00 UTC