Manchester Airport: What we know so far as flights cancelled after huge power cut

Thomas George

23 June 2024 at 9:32 am·2-min read

Huge queues at Terminal 1 of Manchester Airport after all flights were cancelled 'until further notice' — -Credit: (Image: Manchester Evening News)

Thousands of people are facing travel disruption after a huge power cut at Manchester Airport.

All flights out of Terminals 1 and 2 have been cancelled 'until further notice' with passengers told to stay away from both terminals after the outage, which hit the airport in the early hours of this morning.

Although the airport's back-up generator kicked in when the main system went down, the situation was complicated by power cutting out multiple times.

Power has since been restored but baggage and security systems are continuing to be affected.

Chris Woodroofe, Manchester Airport's managing director, said there had been "a big power spike" in the airport's electrical system due to "a failure".

"That's damaged some really key equipment for our departure security and our departures baggage systems," he added.

He did not reveal the cause of the power failure but said he expected the airport to return to "normal operations" tomorrow.

The issue has left thousands of people facing delays and cancellations. In an update this lunchtime, the airport announced that all flights from Terminals 1 and 2 were being cancelled "until further notice".

More than 100 flights were due to depart from the airport today.

Passengers flying via Terminal 3 should go to the airport as normal "unless advised otherwise by their airline", an airport spokesperson said.

Travellers have taken to social media to post images of major queues and shared their frustration with the airport. Some have reported instances where some baggage was not on flights.

Thousands of passengers have been affected by the delays — Piles of suitcases at Manchester Airport after the power cut caused widespread travel disruption

An image shared with the Manchester Evening News showed a mass of suitcases left inside one of the terminals.

Airline easyJet, which operates flights from terminal one, said there were “very long queues” for security and disruption to hold baggage processing, meaning passengers could board flights only with cabin luggage.

Meanwhile, a number of arriving flights have been diverted to other airports.

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