Around 20,000 airline passengers are waking up where they did not intend to be this morning, after being caught up in the travel chaos at Manchester airport following a voltage surge and power cut early on Sunday.
Airlines were ordered to cancel some of their flights yesterday to try to deal with the backlog of passengers.
What are these passengers’ prospects for reaching their destinations today – and will they be able to claim any compensation?
These are the key questions and answers.
How many flights were cancelled?
To and from Manchester airport – the third-busiest in the UK – I calculate that 140 departing and arriving flights were cancelled, which represents around 20,000 passengers. They include some long-haul flights – to New York, Singapore, Houston and Dubai – which have many hundreds of passengers booked.
In addition, some were diverted on Sunday morning and a dozen flights to and from Amsterdam were grounded during the day.
How are things now at Manchester airport?
The airport posted last night that Monday’s schedule “is expected to run as usual with no further disruption”.
This is not strictly true. Some flights are operating with delays of an hour or two as airlines cope with residual delays, and easyJet has cancelled a round-trip to Amsterdam.
EasyJet is telling passengers this morning: “Please be advised due to the airport system failure at Manchester airport the bag drops is running slow, our ground handling agents are doing Manual check-in which might take more time than usual.”
But the airport says it is unaware of any problems with the baggage system.
The airport says: “Passengers should plan to travel to the airport as normal, checking-in two hours ahead of their flight for short-haul, and three hours for long-haul. It is always advisable to check the status of your flight before you travel to the airport.
“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 onto their flights are reunited with their belongings as soon as possible.”
What happens to stranded passengers today?
Under European air passengers’ rights rules, they are entitled to be flown to their destination as soon as possible. The trouble is – there’s real pressure on airlines at the…
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