LONDON: A "significant" number of flights at the United Kingdom's third-busiest airport were being delayed or cancelled today after a major power cut, the airport operator said.

The Manchester Airports Group, which also operates London Stansted and the East Midlands airports, said Manchester Airport had been "affected by a major power cut in the area earlier this morning".

"This has caused widespread disruption," the group said on social media.

Power has now been restored at the international airport in the north of England, but passengers due to travel from Terminals One and Two were told to "not come to the airport until further notice" as flights were being cancelled.

Passengers for Terminal Three were told to come to the airport as normal but warned they "could be affected by delays".

Some flyers took to X, formerly Twitter, to describe the "chaos", with one passenger saying there was "baggage thrown on any carousel" and another saying they were "stuck on the plane".

Airline easyJet, which operates flights from Terminal One, warned of "very long queues" for security, and disruption to check in luggage, meaning passengers can only board flights with cabin bags.

The UK's travel industry has been hit by a series of disruptions in the last few years, including technical problems and industrial action 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, the country faced its worst air traffic control disruption in almost ten years due to a technical fault.

  - AFP