London (AFP) – Flights at the UK’s third-busiest airport were being delayed or cancelled Sunday after a major power cut, the airport operator said. The Manchester Airports Group, which also operates London Stansted and the East Midlands airports, said Manchester Airport had been “affected by a major power cut in the area earlier this morning.”
Power has now been restored at the international airport in the north of England, but passengers due to travel from Terminals One and Two were told to “not come to the airport” as all flights were cancelled “until further notice”. Passengers for Terminal Three were told to come to the airport as normal, but were warned they “could be affected by delays”.
The airport operator said that while passengers already checked in were scheduled to depart as planned, the disruption meant “some baggage may not be on those flights”. “We will work with airlines and handling partners to reunite affected passengers with their luggage as soon as possible”, the group added.
The airline Jet2 — which operates from both terminals — said that as well as cancelling dozens of flights, it was unable to load bags onto planes as the airport’s baggage system remained “inoperable”. Airline easyJet, which operates flights from Terminal One, warned of “very long queues” for security, and said passengers could only board flights with cabin bags.
In addition, some arriving flights were being diverted to other airports according to the airport statement, including London Heathrow and Birmingham.
Some flyers took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to describe the “chaos”, with one passenger saying they had been waiting for their bags after landing after midnight and another saying they were “stuck on the plane”.
The UK’s travel industry has been hit by a series of disruptions in the last few years, including technical problems and industrial action affecting rail and air passengers. Last month, a nationwide outage of immigration e-gates caused long delays for thousands of passengers. In August last year, the country faced its worst air traffic control disruption in almost ten years due to a technical fault.
© 2024 AFP
