LONDON: The third-busiest airport in the United Kingdom, namely Manchester Airport, cancelled over 100 flights on Sunday. This was following a major power cut which affected ‘thousands of passengers’.

At least 20 per cent of all outgoing and incoming flights were cancelled, a Manchester Airport spokesperson stated, whilst adding that they expected further disruption. Earlier on, aviation analytics firm ‘Cirium’ said 66 departures and 50 inbound flights had been cancelled, with ‘easyJet’ experiencing the largest number of cancellations.

Manchester Airports Group, which also operates London Stansted and the East Midlands airports, said the airport had been “affected by a major power cut in the area earlier this morning” and passengers at two of the three terminals were told to stay away.

The power cut led to problems with airport security and baggage systems, according to Chris Woodroofe, the airports’ managing director. Flights resumed in the afternoon. Woodroofe said on social media that he expects flights to be “back to normal operations”, by Monday.

The airline ‘Jet2’ said that as well as cancelling dozens of flights, it was unable to load bags onto planes as the baggage system remained “inoperable”. ‘EasyJet’ warned of “very long queues” for security and said passengers could only board flights with cabin bags.

A handful of flights were diverted to airports in and around Manchester, including London Heathrow and Birmingham. Travellers took to X (formerly Twitter) to describe the “chaos”, with one passenger saying they had been waiting for their bags after landing late at night and another said that they were “stuck on the plane”.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2024