Manchester Airport, the third-busiest in Britain, cancelled over 100 flights affecting thousands of passengers Sunday following a major power cut.

At least 20 percent of all outgoing and incoming flights were cancelled, a Manchester Airport spokesperson said, adding that it expected further disruption.

Earlier aviation analytics firm Cirium said 66 departures and 50 inbound flights had been cancelled with easyJet experiencing the largest number of cancellations.

Manchester Airports Group, which also operates London Stansted and the East Midlands airports, said the airport had been "affected by a major power cut in the area earlier this morning" and passengers at two of the three terminals were told to stay away.

The power cut led to problems with airport security and baggage systems, according to Chris Woodroofe, the airport managing director. Flights resumed in the afternoon.

Woodroofe said on social media he expected flights to be "back to normal operations" on Monday.

The airline Jet2 said that as well as cancelling dozens of flights, it was unable to load bags onto planes as the baggage system remained "inoperable".

EasyJet warned of "very long queues" for security and said passengers could only board flights with cabin bags.

Some arriving flights were diverted to other airports including London Heathrow and Birmingham.

Some flyers took to X, formerly Twitter, to describe the "chaos", with one passenger saying they had been waiting for their bags after landing after midnight and another saying they were "stuck on the plane".

The UK travel industry has been hit by a series of technical and strike disruptions in recent years that have affecting rail and air passengers.

Last month, a nationwide outage of immigration e-gates caused long delays for thousands of passengers. In August last year, Britain faced its worst air traffic control disruption in years due to a technical fault.

© 2024 AFP