Manchester Airport's Managing Director, Chris Woodroofe has apologised for flight cancellations following an electrical fault.
Are you stuck at the airport?Holidaymakers have spoken of the chaos they endured at Manchester Airport today after a quarter of all flights were cancelled due to a major power cut.
The power cut lasted just a few minutes at 1.30am, knocking out security systems including baggage loading, boarding pass screening and passport controls. Passengers queue outside Terminal 1 after an overnight power cut led to disruptions and cancellations at Manchester Airport'When we got to the gate, we spotted the captain of the plane. He didn't know about the chaos inside the airport and was wondering why the baggage hadn't been loaded.
Paul and Jane Spencer's flight was cancelled just before take off and they were forced to find alternative flights from Leeds-Bradford airport todayEmily Parkinson and Charlie Smith wait in the queues at Manchester Airport Mrs Holt, 45, said: 'We were watching our flight on Flight Radar and it just kept circling above Manchester Airport before it was diverted to Birmingham.'We've been told to stay at a hotel in Manchester and hopefully we can get a flight early tomorrow morning.'The airport's own power supply packed up at about 1.30am that was effectively like 'ripping the plug out of your computer without shutting it down properly', he said.
Some passengers who did manage to board planes earlier face an anxious wait to be reunited with their belongings as the airport warned luggage lined up and piled in the terminals may not even have been flown out on the same plane as them. Explaining the impact the power spike had on its systems and the dire situation the airport finds itself in with planes unable to land on a jammed airfield.
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. Among those caught up in the disruption was 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.
Manchester Airport is in 'utter chaos' today with passengers standing shoulder-to-shoulder in after a major power cut left all flights facing severe delays or cancellations He continued: 'The good news is we very much expect this to be recovered over the afternoon and evening so we are back to normal operations tomorrow.'
People expecting to fly in to Manchester found out mid-air they were landing miles away elsewhere as a number of flights are diverted to other airports. The cut knocked out the computers operating the site's security systems, including those at passport control, boarding pass readers and bag processing
Honey Harrop, 20, Evie Marsh, 20 and Sara Bonakdar, 21, have all been left 'devastated' after missing out on seeing American pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo tonight in Lisbon. Luggage has been chucked on 'any carousel' with prams discarded on the floor, one person claimed who has posted footage which showed people standing in near darkness as an alarm sounded.
'The fault has been fixed and checked so we are confident it won't happen again but we do not know exactly what caused it. 'We will work with airlines to make sure passengers are reunited with any baggage that is not on their flight as soon as possible,' the airport said. 'It was terribly slow movement on the passport control - several machines going down and again, zero staff- had there been a zombie apocalypse whilst we flew the skies?
'On top of the tens of thousands of people who will be affected by hundreds of cancellations you've got an equal of opposite number of people waiting to fly back who are also going to be stranded.He warned the situation could get 'very messy' and people could be waiting 'several days' to get to where they needed to be.
Hundreds of people have been pictured outside waiting to get inside the airport and say they don't know whether their flight will be departing today
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