Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts
Get Simon Calder’s Travel email
Get Simon Calder’s Travel email
Dozens of arrivals and departures at Manchester airport have been heavily delayed because of the closure of one of the two runways. Thousands of passengers flying to and from the UK’s third-busiest airports are affected.
The cause of the closure is a surface failure on one of the taxiways. In order to fix it, engineers needed to close one of the runways.
Poor visibility due to rain has added to the problem. The number of inbound flights has been capped by air traffic controllers. Although there are no limits on departures, and some flights have got away on time, aircraft arriving late will cause delays during the morning.
Flightradar reported: “Runway 05L/23R at Manchester airport is closed due to a surface failure. With the airport operating only one runway, passengers can expect significant delays.”
Arrivals over an hour late include:
- British Airways from Heathrow
- KLM from Amsterdam
- Lufthansa from Frankfurt
- SAS Scandinavian Airlines from Copenhagen
- Finnair from Helsinki
- Turkish Airlines from Istanbul
All the corresponding return flights to those key hubs will be significantly delayed, jeopardising connections.
Many budget flights are also delayed. A typical example is Ryanair’s 7.50am departure from Belfast International to Manchester. The Boeing 737 was ready to leave on schedule from the Northern Ireland airport, but appears to have held on the ground awaiting a slot to land at Manchester.
It departed nearly two hours late and flew circuits west of the airport for a further 20 minutes before being cleared to land. The flight touched down two hours late – delaying the subsequent departure to Tirana in Albania.
An easyJet flight from Belfast City is also around two hours late, after a similar 20-minute hold before landing.
Manchester airport is urging passengers to come to the airport as usual but to watch for updates from their airline.
Residual delays are likely to continue into the afternoon.
Read more: The rail, road, flight and ferry travel chaos to expect this Christmas
