- Author, Ewan Gawne
- Role, BBC News
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Manchester Airport has said that it expects flights to resume later, following a major power cut which caused huge disruption.
Huge queues formed when a quarter of all flights from the airport had to be cancelled because of a power outage.
Airport officials said planes would take off in the afternoon and early evening after flights from Terminals 1 and 2 were stopped.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said that by lunchtime 66 outbound flights and 50 inbound were axed.
Passengers travelling via Terminals 1 and 2 had been told to stay away after the outage hit in the early hours, affecting baggage and security systems.
The disruption comes at the start of the summer holiday season at the UK’s third-busiest airport, which has apologised to passengers.
The airport said its electricity supply went off at about 01:30 but has since been restored, although it would take time to get systems up and running again.
Kelvin Knaver, of St Helens, Merseyside, had been due to fly to Amsterdam with EasyJet before his flight was cancelled.
“There’s such a backlog that it’s going to take forever to clear.”
Many people affected posted on social media photographs of long queues for check-in desks and passport control, and complained of a lack of communication from staff.
Pictures and video footage showed long queues of people, some waiting in near darkness.
Airport managing director Chris Woodroofe said earlier that power had been restored but that there would be no departures at all from the two terminals for the rest of the day.
More than 100 flights had been due to depart from the UK’s largest airport outside London when the problems started in the early hours, and many inbound flights have had to be diverted.
Mr Woodroofe said a “big power spike” in the airport electrical systems led to a failure which damaged “really key equipment”.
He added: “It’s a very difficult situation, I couldn’t be more sorry,” he said.
The airport told the BBC inbound flights had been diverted because “planes can’t take off” due to limited space.
This made it harder to accept aircraft, which would be sent elsewhere, a spokesman said.
Among those affected was a flight arriving from Houston in Texas which had to go to London Heathrow while another, coming from Singapore, was forced to land at London Gatwick.
The airport’s back-up power came on when the primary system went down, but the situation was complicated by mains power cutting out multiple times.
Airlines have said problems with baggage processing meant customers could only board with a cabin bag.
In a statement, Jet2 said handlers had been unable to load bags on to planes due to the outage.
Meanwhile an Easyjet spokesman said passengers could only board their flight with a cabin bag because of problems with the baggage system.
Passengers flying via Terminal 3 were also warned about delays.
‘Chaos’
Bobbi Hadgraft, who is travelling to watch England at Euro 2024, told BBC Radio Manchester she arrived at the airport at about 04:00 BST to see “enormous queues” outside Terminal 1.
“We were worried we would miss our flight,” she said, adding the power outage had affected display boards and scanners so staff had to direct passengers around the site.
Olwyn Hocking said one member of staff looked like they were trying to hide as “hundreds and hundreds of people poured into the airport, with not a clue there was problem”.
She said it was “chaos”.
Balázs Fazekas, who was due to fly to Montenegro for a week-long holiday with his wife and eight-month-old baby, arrived at 02:00 BST and, after eight hours standing in queues, found out the flight had been cancelled.
“There are bigger issues in life than this,” he said, but added the lack of communication from the airport had been “quite frustrating”.
Another passenger, Phillip Banfield, said his plane had taken off while he was stuck after going through passport control.
He said he was surrounded by an “enormous number of passengers, stranded, wondering how they’re going to continue onwards journeys”.
It had been “virtually impossible” to get through check-in and security, which was only feasible if you were just carrying hand luggage, he added.
Have you been affected by the power cut at Manchester airport?
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
