MANCHESTER — All flights out of the two main terminals at Manchester Airport have been cancelled after a "significant power cut" caused widespread disruption.

Passengers travelling through Terminals 1 and 2 have been told to stay away after the outage hit in the early hours, affecting baggage and security systems. An airport spokesman said all flights from those terminals have been cancelled "until further notice".

Large queues have formed inside the airport, which is the UK's largest outside London, and more than 100 outbound flights have already been cancelled and inbound flights diverted.

Passengers flying via Terminal 3 should come to the airport as normal but could face delays, an airport spokesman said.

Flights of those already at the airport would be prioritised as efforts to "work through that backlog" continued, a spokesman said. The number of journeys the airport's departure board is showing as cancelled is expected to grow until at least mid-afternoon.

The airport told the BBC inbound flights were diverted because “planes can’t take off” due to limited space. This made it harder to accept aircraft, which would be sent elsewhere, the spokesman added.

The airport's back-up power systems came on when the main system went down, but the situation was complicated by mains power cutting out multiple times. Airlines have said problems with baggage processing meant customers could only board with a cabin bag. In a statement, Jet2 said handlers had been unable to load bags onto planes due to the outage. Meanwhile, an Easyjet spokesman said passengers could only board their flight with a cabin bag because of problems with the baggage system.

The disruption comes at the start of the summer holiday season at the UK's third-busiest airport, which has apologised to passengers. An airport source said the power cut "literally knocked everything off". — BBC