Manchester Airport boss apologizes for flight chaos

The boss of Manchester Airport on Sunday apologized to passengers affected by huge flight delays and cancellations, saying: “I couldn’t be more sorry.”

Thousands of passengers – who were heading abroad on holiday – saw their getaway canceled or delayed after a “power surge” caused flight chaos.

Huge queues snaked around the airport after terminals one and two were badly damaged.‌ Flights were canceled “until further notice”, planes were diverted and baggage claim stalled.

Tourists were warned to stay away as power was restored and they scrambled to clear the backlog. The airport said it was “working to get those passengers already at the airport onto flights as soon as possible”.

But thousands of people already at the airport faced significant delays and possible cancellations. And a number of arriving flights were diverted to other airports, including the Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport, which was sent to Birmingham.

Chris Woodroofe, managing director of Manchester Airport, said in a video message: “I have just stepped away from my incident response team to deliver this message.

“First of all an apology, my sincere apology, a personal apology to every passenger who was affected by what happened at Manchester Airport today. There was a large power spike in our electrical system due to a fault early this morning and it damaged some equipment critical to our security systems and baggage on departures.

“So that means Terminal One and Terminal Two were unable to take off planes today. As a result, we did not have those aircraft able to land arrivals because there is no space to park those aircraft at the airfield…” He thanked his team for doing a “very difficult job” in “very difficult circumstances” .

“I couldn’t be more sorry,” he concluded before adding the “good news” is that they expect to “return to normal operations tomorrow.” A statement earlier said “a major power outage” had caused widespread disruption.

One joked: “I bet there’s no power cut issues with those machines that charge you £5 to drop someone off at Manchester airport…” Another said on X, ex-Twitter: “I up at 2.30am for a 3.30am taxi to Manchester airport. for 4.30. He stood outside the terminal for over four hours before his flight and holiday was cancelled. Real blunders.”