The incident led Travel Village Group chief executive Phil Nuttall, along with several other agencies, to question the airport’s contingency planning.

Manchester airport chief executive Chris Woodroofe has confirmed a full investigation into the incident, which led to dozens of flights being cancelled, would take place.

Woodroofe said he believed the fault had been traced to an underground cable following a "big power spike".

In a video message posted to X (formerly Twitter), Woodroofe said he wished to offer affected passengers his “sincere, personal apologies”. Flights were due to operate as scheduled on Monday (24 June), along with services rescheduled from Sunday. 

The airport and its major airlines have promised to reunite passengers who ended up travelling without their baggage with their belongings as soon as possible with the outage affecting baggage and security systems at terminals 1 and 2.

‘Deadly serious’

Nuttall described the situation as “horrendous”, and praised the efforts of tour operators and cruise lines as well as Travel Village’s own emergency response team. 

“Why were we in this position?" asked Nuttall. "I don’t understand what the contingency plans were. There should be a public inquiry into this. Who is taking responsibility? It is absolutely shocking.

“I’m being deadly serious here. We do not know what is going on. These aircraft were flying without luggage.”

Nuttall hailed MSC Cruises’ contact centre staff for stepping in to rebook flights, hotel accommodation and transfers for one Travel Village client and her 87-year-old mum who had booked a sailing from Marghera, Italy. 

“I’ve just sent an email to [MSC Group’s international sales vice-president] Antonio Paradiso and [MSC Cruises’ UK and Ireland sales director] Steve Williams because we received some of the best service I’ve had in 40 years,” he added.

Some 20 Travel Village customers were affected by the power outage at Manchester airport, said Nuttall, who added: “Quite of few of them flew without luggage."

Nuttall highlighted the efforts of Travel Village’s emergency response team and several homeworkers who swung into action despite being miles from their desks, or even on holiday themselves.

“Our emergency response (ER) team has been practising for this,” said Nuttall. “This was their first major test.”

Travel Circle manager David Cookson on Monday (24 June) confirmed staff at the Longridge-based agency were still working with Manchester airport to reunite customers with their luggage. 

“I personally feel Manchester airport handled this very badly,” he said. “We got off quite lightly in the grand scheme of things. We only had four passengers involved. For them, it was their flights being delayed and then the fact that they got to their resort with no luggage.”

He added: “One of our clients is actually on a cruise so that’s a bit of a nightmare. As far as we know, customers’ luggage is still sitting in a pile at Manchester airport and we have not been given any updates as of yet, but we do expect this to be resolved within the next couple of days.”

‘We know the drill’ 

Ramsbottom-based agency Designer Travel said “many” of its customers were affected by the power cut.

In a social media post on Monday (24 June), Designer Travel said: “We rebooked every single holiday that was affected to make it as stress-free for our clients. 

“We know the drill, we’ve been here many times before with ash clouds, Sars, Covid and more recently, the Dubai flash floods. 

“When the unexpected happens, we jump into action and ensure you, our clients, are looked after.”

In a statement issued on Monday morning, Manchester airport said: "All our systems are running as normal today, so passengers are advised to prepare to travel as usual from Manchester airport.

"That means going online to check the status of your flight before you leave then following your airline’s instructions in terms of when to arrive at the airport – usually two hours for short-haul and three hours for long-haul.

"The airport is likely to be slightly busier than usual due to passengers affected by cancellations yesterday, but we have extra staff in place and our resilience team is helping out.

"We are working with airlines to ensure passengers are reunited with luggage as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience. Your airline will be in contact with you about the process for receiving your bag if it is delayed.

In response to TTG’s request for further comment on its efforts to restore operations, it shared a link to its latest statement on X/Twitter, which can be found here.