Manchester Airport is operating “normally” but will be busier than normal, a spokesperson said. Thousands remained affected Monday morning.
By means of Narbeh Minassian, news reporter, and Tom Parmenter, national correspondent
Monday June 24, 2024 11:24 AM, UK
Disruption and long queues at Manchester Airport continued after a major power outage grounded all flights from two terminals.
The airport issued a statement on Monday morning saying operations had resumed and urged passengers to “prepare to travel as usual”.
But thousands remained affected early on Monday, with some waiting for alternative flights and others managing to take off only to find their luggage was not put on the plane.
Some travelers complained of long lines for baggage drop-off and a significant number of planes were still delayed.
Sian Hopwood from Lancashire tried to reach Kefalonia in Greece but her Sunday flight was cancelled. She tried again on Monday.
“Yesterday showed how archaic this airport can be,” Ms Hopwood told Sky News.
“We had a rescheduled flight from Manchester at 6am so got up at 2.30am and got to the airport at 4am this morning to find we had a big delay… we then rebooked.
“Our daughter is coming with us but she has now gone to Leeds Bradford airport to get away.
“Unfortunately, what was a four-day holiday in Kefalonia is now a three-day holiday… but the good news is that I’m writing this from our plane, and hopefully we’ll finally get off the ground!”
Passengers were stuck at Manchester Airport
Dozens of flights canceled
The power outage, which entered the systems in the early hours of SundayAccording to aviation analytics firm Cirium, this meant around 70 departures and 50 arrivals were cancelled.
No flights departed from two of the three terminals for several hours, causing huge queues and failures of baggage systems.
In a message to passengers, Jet2.com said some flights departed with “less or no baggage” because the baggage system was “unusable” during the outage.
It could take “some time” for the luggage to get back to its owners, she added.
Due to the disruption, a number of arriving flights were diverted to other airports.
One Singapore Airlines flight arriving in Texas from Houston had to go to Heathrow, while another, arriving from Singapore, landed at Gatwick.
An Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport was diverted to Birmingham Airport.
One passenger, Hayden Lewis, said his flight to the Greek island of Skiathos was canceled after he had been at the airport for about five hours.
He later went to Birmingham Airport after being dropped off by his father and hoped to reach his destination.
“We are now in Birmingham thanks to my dad who picked us up from Manchester and dropped us off in Birmingham,” Lewis told Sky News on Sunday.
“All because easyJet doesn’t know when they can free us again, but wants us to keep checking the app [along with the thousands of others].”
Manchester Airport chief executive Chris Woodroofe apologized for the chaos and said there would be an investigation into what happened.
A statement from the airport on Monday said it was “likely to be slightly busier than normal due to passengers affected by cancellations yesterday, but we have additional staff on site and our resilience team are assisting”.