Manchester Airport is getting a major upgrade after Monday’s travel chaos

Flights are expected to “operate as usual” on Monday after severe disruption hit passengers over the weekend due to a major power cut, Manchester Airport said. The outage, which hit systems in the early hours of Sunday, meant that by lunchtime, 66 outbound flights (25% of all departures) and 50 inbound journeys (18% of all arrivals) had been cancelled. , according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

The airport said no flights were departing from terminals one and two, leading to huge queues and disruption to baggage processing throughout the day. In an update posted on social media late on Sunday, Manchester Airport said it did not anticipate any “further disruption” for Monday.

A statement said: “We would like to apologize to everyone affected by the disruptions at Terminals 1 and 2 today. Tomorrow’s schedule is expected to run as usual with no further disruption, so 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 distances.

“It is always advisable to check the status of your flight before traveling to the airport.”

The statement continued: “Airlines will be reaching out to 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 goods as soon as possible. We thank passengers for their patience today and would also like to thank all our staff, airlines and partners on the ground for their hard work and resilience.”

Earlier on Sunday, managing director Chris Woodroofe told BBC News that “a cable failure caused a surge which destroyed the security and baggage control systems”.

Mr Woodroofe said: “When Terminals 1 and 2 can’t leave passengers for an entire morning, there will be an impact. And I’m very sorry that it happened, and now we’re making sure that as we look forward, that impact doesn’t continue into tomorrow.”

He said an investigation was to take place into what happened. The disruption also meant that a number of arriving flights were diverted to other airports.

A Singapore Airlines flight arriving from Houston to Texas had to go to London Heathrow, while another, which came from Singapore, was forced to land at London Gatwick. An Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport has been diverted to Birmingham Airport.

Among those caught up in the disruption were Samuel Martin, 27, a student at the University of Sheffield, and his friend Matthew O’Brien, 27, an operations manager, whose flight to Manchester Airport from New Zealand via Singapore was diverted to Heathrow.

Mr Martin, from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, said: “We had someone who was driving come and pick us up from Manchester airport who had to turn around and go home.”

Just after 3 p.m., the airport said it was in the process of resuming operations.