The lights are always on at DFW International Airport. Around the clock, Oncor makes sure the world’s second-busiest airport has the power it needs to safely and securely handle thousands of flights and millions of passengers in and out of the airport each year.

A special Oncor district based in Irving is dedicated to the maintenance and expansion of all the electrical Distribution equipment devoted solely to the DFW Airport. Plus, there are three substations – and a planned fourth one – that deliver power to the airport’s system.

“Working out here is a great thing. I love it,” said Mark Dawson, M&C Supervisor, who oversees two crews at the airport. “I’ve been working here for the last eight years and I’m wowed by the airplanes and everything they do here.”

Myron Tipps is the District Manager for Oncor’s DFW Airport team. In addition to the two maintenance and construction crews, the district also has its own design group.

“We’re kind of a one-stop shop of how we do our business to provide service for the airport,” Tipps said. “It’s a very important, very large job.”

In 2022, DFW Airport handled nearly 657,000 flights in and out of the facility. Those flights carried some 73 million passengers. The airport property consists of over 17,000 acres and Oncor supplies power to all of it.

Oncor provides electricity to the five passenger terminals, which includes the gates, the jetways, the SkyLink people mover and the baggage handling. But there are also over 100 retail stores and 130 restaurants and bars in those terminals.

Across the airport property are airline maintenance facilities, airline vendors, the FAA and numerous businesses, like Amazon and FedEx, that are also supplied power by Oncor.

“We provide redundant power to every customer that we serve at the airport,” said Aubrey Allen, NCM Consultant.

Dawson said working at the airport is different than regular Oncor distribution work because of the security restrictions. “You can’t just go into the airport and say, ‘OK, it’s time to work on this,’ ” he said. “Everything has to be coordinated. Because you don’t have as many flights at night as you do in the daytime, we do a lot of night work.”

Tipps said most of Oncor’s system at DFW Airport is underground in vaults and in conduits. Each terminal contains numerous large transformers, which are hidden away from the public and airport employees.

Oncor’s Distribution Operating Center or DOC monitors all of the on-airport equipment day and night. And the company keeps an ample supply of electrical equipment on hand in case of a problem.

“This is the second-largest airport in the world,” Tipps said. “We’re readily available and very, very conscious of what it takes to keep the airport where it needs to be.”