Cable fault caused power cut, says airport bosspublished at 17:01
Breaking
We’ve just been hearing from Manchester Airport’s managing director Chris Woodroofe.
Speaking to a reporter, he describes it as a “very difficult day” and apologises to passengers affected by the flight disruption.
He explains that at 01:30 BST today there was a “fault” with a cable on the airport’s site, which sent a surge of power across the electrical network and affected the baggage screening and security systems.
As a result, he says flights were unable to depart Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 until this afternoon.
Woodroofe says the airport will investigate what caused the fault next week.
When asked about passenger accounts of the airport in darkness, he maintains rather that the lights had gone dim and adds it was a “safe environment”.
He continues by saying: “We were due to have 90,000 passengers fly in and out of this airport today, and when Terminal 1 and 2 can’t depart passengers for an entire morning there is going to be an impact.
“And I’m really sorry that happened and we’re now making sure as we look forward, that impact doesn’t carry on into tomorrow.”