All flights from two Manchester Airport terminals cancelled after power cut

All flights departing from Terminals 1 and 2 have been cancelled 'until further notice', ITV News' Anila Dhami reports

All flights from two Manchester Airport terminals were cancelled on Sunday after a “major power cut” which caused huge queues and disruption to baggage processing.

The cancellations amounted to a quarter of the total flights from the airport.

The outage, which hit systems in the early hours of Sunday, meant that by lunchtime 66 outbound flights (25% of all departures) and 50 inbound journey (18% of all arrivals) were axed, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.

In a social media post on Sunday, the airport said no flights would be departing from Terminals 1 and 2 “until further notice” following the outage.

It advised passengers due to travel from those terminals not to go to the airport and to contact their airlines for up-to-date information.

Managing Director of Manchester Airport Chris Woodroofe said officials have established that a power cable failure caused the outage but officials are uncertain as to why it failed.

Mr Woodroofe apologised for the disruption caused to passengers

"At this stage we don't know what caused the cable to fail, we're going to be looking into the root cause of that next week," Mr Woodroofe said.

"Our focus today has been on recovering the systems and getting the operation back up and running and I'm delighted to see aircraft behind me taxiing to depart with passengers on them heading off on their holidays," he added.

Manchester is the UK's third-busiest airport.

Those due to fly from Terminal 3 were told to go to the airport as normal, unless advised otherwise by their airline, after some earlier departures were delayed.

There were instances where some people’s baggage was not on flights.

Airline easyJet, which operates flights from Terminal 1, said there were “very long queues” for security and disruption to hold baggage processing, meaning passengers could board flights only with cabin luggage.

It said: “Although outside of our control, we would like to apologise for any inconvenience experienced as a result.

“We are doing all we can and working closely with the airport team to minimise the disruption.”

Meanwhile, a number of arriving flights were being 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.

The airport said: “We apologise for any inconvenience and aim to restore normal service as soon as possible.”

A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said: “Following a site-wide power outage at Manchester Airport, baggage systems are currently not operational.

“Our teams are working closely with the airport authorities and are keeping our customers up to date with the latest information.

"Manchester Airport was affected by a major power cut in the area this morning", it explained.

"This has caused widespread disruption and a significant number of flights, particularly from Terminals 1 and 2, are expected to be delayed or cancelled."

Passengers are being urged to check before making their way to the airport.

Footage of huge queues of people already inside the airport have been posted to social media.

On X, Derek Flint, called the situation a "shambles", while Katie Philips posted two videos at 4am this morning, saying "all been brought to T1 , baggage thrown on any carousel no communication at all prams just left on the floor..... Good Luck everyone!"

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