Manchester Airport: Ground flights rearranged after power outage

Some passengers whose travel plans were thrown into chaos by a power cut at Manchester Airport are facing further delays as airlines rearrange flights on the ground.

Airport bosses said all flights scheduled for Monday were “expected to run as normal”.

But he said airlines would be contacting travelers whose flights were canceled on Sunday.

More than 90,000 people were affected when the outage caused problems with security and baggage screening. The airport apologized.

From the early hours of Sunday, outbound flights were grounded and scheduled arrivals were diverted to other UK airports.

By lunchtime, there were 66 outbound flights (25% of all departures) and 50 inbound journeys (18% of all arrivals), according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

At around 19:30 BST, airport bosses said flights had resumed and promised an investigation into what happened.

Passengers whose flights were canceled described the situation at the airport as “chaos,” and photos shared on social media showed long queues and jammed baggage carousels overflowing with luggage.

There are reports that some people’s luggage was not loaded onto the planes.

Kelvin Knaver, from St Helens, was due to fly to Amsterdam with EasyJet.

He told BBC North West Tonight: “It was a mess. There is such a delay that it will take forever to clear.”

EasyJet recorded the highest number of cancellations. She said the delays were “outside of her control” and that she was “doing everything possible to minimize the impact of the disruption”.

A Singapore Airlines flight from Houston, Texas, was diverted to London Heathrow, while another departing from Singapore had to land at London Gatwick.

An Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi had to land at Birmingham Airport.

Chris Woodroofe, managing director of Manchester Airport, said he was sorry for the delays and that staff were “making sure the impact (does not) continue” in the coming days.

The outage was caused by a “fault” in a cable at the airport, which sent a power surge into the power grid, he said.