by All flights out of terminals one and two at Manchester airport were canceled after a “significant power cut” in the early hours of Sunday morning, leaving hundreds of holidaymakers stranded.
The airport told all passengers due to travel from its two main terminals on Sunday not to come to the airport, and warned passengers on the few departing flights that their luggage might not be with them.
More than 60 departures, around a quarter of all flights departing the airport on Sunday, were cancelled, as well as 50 incoming flights.
“Manchester airport was affected by a significant power cut early this morning,” he said in a statement. “Power has been restored but the outage affected key systems, including boarding card processing and baggage screening, causing significant delays.”
At the airport on Sunday afternoon, hundreds of suitcases could be seen piled up in front of check-in desks as the baggage system was still inoperable, with many passengers queuing for hours in hopes of catching flights still scheduled on departure boards .
The tension continued in the terminal buildings, punctuated by the sounds of announcements asking people on canceled flights to leave the airport and call their airline from home. Virgin Atlantic, Jet2 and easyJet flights were among those affected.
Rick and Sue Newby, from Macclesfield, should have been on an easyJet flight to Lanzarote at 7am, but after arriving at the airport at 5am, checking in their luggage and going to the gate, they discovered that it had been cancelled.
They managed to book a Jet2 flight to the same destination for the evening, departing from terminal two, and were waiting outside the building to check in again – only to receive an email just before 1pm saying that it has also been cancelled. .
“We paid nearly £500 more on new flights to get out there today,” said Sue. “And they let me book that at 11.30am this morning.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it. We’ve been here since 5am.”
Videos posted on social media showed the airport plunged into darkness and baggage carousels stopped when the power cut hit in the early hours. Many vacationers expressed frustration at how the outage was causing so much disruption, sometimes after power was restored.
“The whole airport is open, all the shops are open, all the lights are on, hot food is being made and served – it’s like, what power cut? What’s this power outage?” said Rick. “We don’t understand what’s going on.”
Many passengers said they made their way to the airport, the UK’s third busiest, on Sunday morning after being assured their flight was on, only to find out just after midday that all flights from terminals one and two had been cancelled.
Paula and Meredydd Williams were scouring the internet for more flights to Nice in France after their 12.55pm departure was cancelled. They heard the news about the power cut until they traveled from their home in Eryri (An Sneachta) to the airport.
“If we had known earlier, we could have stayed at home,” said Paula. “My daughter texted me to say she heard it on the news. We hardly knew anything. We were told that we could still board if we only had hand luggage, so we went all the way through security, without being cancelled.”
The couple run their own holiday home business and had to arrange cover to get time off for their five night trip. They were struggling to find any flights that would take them on holiday before Tuesday.
Emma Jones, from Wrexham, said she waited on Jet2 for an hour and 15 minutes trying to rebook her holiday after canceling a 4pm flight to Greece.
“It’s nobody’s fault, is it? But I called Jet2 before we left the house this morning, and they said to come as usual,” she said. “We were told directly to allow extra time to get through security. It was very stressful.”
Passengers also reported being told they would not be able to take hold luggage on their flight if it continued. Sharon Hudson, waiting for a flight to Egypt, said: “How are we going to go on holiday for two weeks with only hand luggage?
“If they put us on a later flight with our luggage I’d be fine with that. But if you go without it, it could be a week before it gets up, if ever.”
Chris Woodroofe, managing director of Manchester airport, said he expected the problems to be resolved and normal operations to resume on Monday, while offering “sincere personal apologies” to everyone affected.
“An early morning failure caused a power spike in our electrical system and damaged some critical equipment for departure security and our departure baggage systems,” he said.
“That means that terminal one and terminal two were unable to leave aircraft today, and as a result aircraft were unable to land as arrivals because there is no space to park those aircraft at the airfield .”
Some flights were still arriving at the airport, but many were diverted elsewhere. The airport said terminal three, which covers domestic flights, was not severely affected but could also be subject to delays.
Travel expert Simon Calder said the systems at Manchester airport were “very stressed” as a result of the power cut, telling LBC: “This is all happening as aviation goes into the peak season, bookings are very heavy on flights, and if you delete a whole load of those, it becomes very crowded, and you could find people waiting for days to get to where they want to be.”
