Disruption to travellers continues after Manchester Airport power cut

Disruption from Manchester Airport’s major power cut continued to affect thousands of travellers on Monday.

Among them were people awaiting alternative departures after Sunday’s wave of cancellations, and those whose flights went ahead but their checked-in luggage was not put on to the plane.

Airline Jet2.com said it “may take some time” for all baggage to reach passengers.

The power outage, which hit systems in the early hours of Sunday, meant that about 70 departures and 50 arrivals were axed, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.

No flights left from two of Manchester Airport’s three terminals for several hours, leading to huge queues and the failure of baggage systems.

Flights are operating normally on Monday, with a handful of further cancellations.

Manchester Airport said in a statement it “would like to apologise to all those affected” by Sunday’s incident, and Monday’s flight operations are “expected to run as usual”.

The statement continued: “Airlines will be in touch with passengers to rearrange cancelled flights as we work with airlines, their baggage handling agents and other partners to make sure passengers whose bags did not make it on to their flights are reunited with their belongings as soon as possible.”

Managing director Chris Woodroofe told BBC News a “fault with a cable had caused a power surge that took down security systems and baggage screening”.

He said there would be an investigation into what happened.

In a message to passengers, Jet2.com said: “Some flights departed with reduced or no luggage as we were unable to load bags on to our aircraft, as the baggage system at the airport was inoperable during the outage.

“Please be advised that our UK-based ground operations team will work hard to ensure that we get your baggage to you, as soon as we can, as you can appreciate this may take some time and we will endeavour to be in contact with you by the end of the day on Monday.

“We understand how frustrating this situation must be and although the situation was beyond our control we will do everything we can to get all luggage to its final destination as soon as we possibly can.”

The disruption meant a number of arriving flights were diverted to other airports.

One Singapore Airlines flight arriving from Houston in Texas had to go to London Heathrow while another, which came in from Singapore, was forced to land at London Gatwick.

An Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport was diverted to Birmingham Airport.