Up to date at Manchester airport – what are your rights if you’ve been interrupted?

Around 20,000 airline passengers are finding themselves where they didn’t intend to be this morning after being caught up in travel chaos at Manchester Airport following a power surge and blackout early on Sunday.

Airlines were yesterday ordered to cancel some of their flights to try to cope with the backlog of passengers.

What are the prospects of these passengers reaching their destination today – and will they be able to claim any compensation?

These are the key questions and answers.

How many flights were cancelled?

To and from Manchester Airport – the third busiest in the UK – I calculate that 140 departures and arrivals have been cancelled, which is around 20,000 passengers. These include several long-haul flights – to New York, Singapore, Houston and Dubai – that have many hundreds of passengers booked.

In addition, some were diverted on Sunday morning and a dozen flights to and from Amsterdam were grounded during the day.

How are things now at Manchester airport?

The airport posted last night that Monday’s schedule “is expected to run as usual with no further disruption”.

This is not strictly true. Some flights are operating with delays of an hour or two as airlines deal with residual delays, and easyJet has canceled a return trip to Amsterdam.

EasyJet tells passengers this morning: “Please be advised due to airport system failure at Manchester Airport, baggage storage is running slowly, our ground handling agents are doing manual check-in which may take longer than usually.”

But the airport says it is not aware of any problems with the baggage system.

The airport says: “Passengers should plan to travel to the airport as normal, checking in two hours before their flight for short-haul and three hours for long-haul. It is always advisable to check the status of your flight before traveling to the airport.

“Airlines will be contacting passengers to re-arrange canceled flights as we work with airlines, their baggage handlers and other partners to ensure that passengers whose bags have not arrived on their flights are reunited with their belongings as soon as possible.” as soon as possible.”

What happens to stranded passengers today?

According to European air passenger rights rules, they have the right to be flown to their destination as soon as possible. The problem is that there is real pressure on airlines at the moment, and finding spare aircraft, pilots and cabin crew to fly “rescue” flights will be difficult. So is finding empty seats on other flights. But Tui and Jet2 will operate additional flights today.

What are passengers entitled to? If they are abroad, their hotels and meals are paid for until they can be flown home. Apart from this, the airline will not pay any cash compensation. The closure of a major international airport counts as an “extraordinary circumstance” and therefore airlines are not required to pay for cancellations and delays. Someone could, in theory, claim additional losses from Manchester Airport under the Consumer Rights Act if they claim the operator failed to act with “reasonable care and skill”.

But that would only be a possibility if they could prove financial harm as a result of the plane being cancelled. Since out-of-pocket expenses are borne by the airlines, this seems unlikely.

Do people who lose part of their vacation get anything back?

If you’re on a package holiday, you can expect a pro-rated refund of the price of your trip – so if you were booked for a week but now only have six days, you should get a seven back.

The other way is travel insurance: some policies pay a modest sum if you’re stranded for 12 hours or more.

Many people who escaped do not have their luggage. What is due?

Those who got away on Sunday usually checked in early, then spent hours at the airport. They flew – unfortunately, without their luggage. I estimate that somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people are in this position. The airport says it is working with airlines to send cases to them as soon as possible. This will likely take a few days, although Jet2 has been flying bags to other airports which should speed up the process.

If you’re stuck without the essentials—toiletries and clothing—you can buy what you need, keep your receipts, and recover. But don’t go crazy. And if you’re on a cruise – well, you may have to start borrowing things from other passengers.

How common are power outages at a major airport?

It happens – including at Gatwick in 2013 – but normally the effects are not so dramatic. Manchester Airport will have some investigating to do.