Travel with Katie Butler: Everything was going so well...

Katie Butler, Total Travel writes: We woke up with the news that a serious power cut at Manchester airport had occurred impacting both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.

When events such as this happen it is important that we know how many of our own customers could be impacted and so manifest reports are generated and we are able to get a list of the customers we need to contact.

We have a duty of care to all of our customers to ensure that they are in the know, even though they may well be receiving text and email alerts.

We made it our priority to contact each and every one of our customers both travelling out of Manchester but also customers due to return home.

Whilst many flights did manage to depart from both terminals, albeit with long delays and some without baggage, the bigger picture is that you then find that aircraft are not in the right places at the right times, meaning even longer delays for those waiting to come home.

So what exactly went wrong?

A video was shared by Manchester Airport on social media platform X – formerly Twitter.

Managing director, Chris Woodroofe, issued his "sincere apologies" to those impacted.

He said: “There had been a big power spike in the airport's electrical system following a failure that's damaged some really key equipment for our departure security and our departures baggage systems."

He added: "That's meant Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 haven't been able to depart aircraft today.”

Thankfully, all our customers made it back to the UK and back into Manchester as we know some flights were diverted to other UK airports.

Delays spilled over to Monday departures but things were back to normal by Tuesday and amazingly we were back on track.

In other airport news – last week we heard muffles of a step forward in the possible re-opening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport, which closed in 2022.

A report has said, potential investors submitted bids earlier last week to Doncaster Council with an announcement of an operator to be made public by early August. Watch this space!

Summer may well be finally here in the UK, however, late bookings still remain strong.

Holidays to depart in July, August and September accounted for 35 per cent of our total new bookings.

We also saw an increase in long haul bookings accounting for a huge 26 per cent share.

Top selling destinations were once again Majorca followed by Tenerife, knocking Turkey from its top two spot last week.

Next week it is holiday time for me and I will be writing from the Greek Island of Rhodes, hopefully, with a cocktail in hand, sat around the pool in scorching hot sunshine.

We are taking a family holiday with no less than 14 of us travelling together, across four generations.

I am, of course, looking forward to telling you all about it next week.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​