Cable ‘fault’ caused major power cut at Manchester Airport

The boss of Manchester Airport has said a ‘fault’ with a cable caused the major power cut that led to thousands of people having their flights axed.

All flights out of Terminals 1 and 2 were cancelled 'until further notice’ today (Sunday) following a huge power cut in the early hours of this morning. Passengers have been told to stay away from both terminals after the outage.

Power has since been restored but baggage and security systems are continuing to be affected. More than 100 flights were due to depart from the airport today, leaving thousands of people facing delays and cancellations.

READ MORE: Airport boss issues apology and reveals when he expects flights to return

The managing director of the airport Chris Woodroofe has told the BBC this afternoon that there was a ‘fault’ with a cable on the airport's site.

He told a reporter that at 1.30am there was a ‘fault’ with a cable on the airport's site, which sent a surge of power across the electrical network and affected the baggage screening and security systems.

As a result, he said flights were unable to depart Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 until this afternoon. Mr Woodroofe said the airport will investigate what caused the fault next week.

He added: "We were due to have 90,000 passengers fly in and out of this airport today, and when Terminal 1 and 2 can't depart passengers for an entire morning there is going to be an impact.

"And I'm really sorry that happened and we're now making sure as we look forward, that impact doesn't carry on into tomorrow."

In a video shared by Manchester Airport on X - formerly Twitter - earlier today Chris Woodroofe said there had been "a big power spike" in the airport's electrical system following "a failure".

He continued: "That's damaged some really key equipment for our departure security and our departures baggage systems," he added. "That's meant Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 haven't been able to depart aircraft today.

"As a result, we haven't had those aircraft be able to land either as arrivals because there's no space to park those aircraft on the airfield."

Mr Woodrofe said the airport was working with airlines to book passengers on future flights and issued an apology.

"It's a very difficult situation, I couldn't be more sorry," he said, adding that he expects the airport to return to "normal operations" tomorrow.