Airport chaos leaves blind football team stranded

A championship-winning blind football team said their celebrations have been postponed after they were among those left stranded abroad due to a power cut at Manchester Airport.

The team from the Royal National College for the Blind (RNC) in Hereford were in France at the weekend where they were crowned European Blind Football League champions.

But the players were unable to fly home to celebrate with their families on Sunday after the power outage at Manchester Airport caused widespread disruption.

The airport apologised to passengers and said all its schedules were expected to be back to normal on Monday.

RNC Hereford’s head coach Adam Bendall told BBC Hereford and Worcester they were at Charles de Gaulle Airport waiting for their flight when they were told it was cancelled.

“Everything looked OK. We were just waiting there and then about three hours before our flight was due to go, they cancelled it,” he said.

But he added they managed to find a hotel for the night and were due to get the Eurostar back to the UK on Monday.

He said some of the team were due to play in a cup final this coming weekend.

“It’s not ideal preparation but we’re all together and that’s the main thing,” Mr Bendall added.

More than 90,000 people were affected when the power outage caused problems with security and baggage screening at the airport on Sunday.

In its latest update to passengers, Manchester Airport said: “We would like to apologise to all those affected by the disruption in Terminals 1 and 2.”

It said Monday’s schedule was expected to run as usual and advised passengers to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport.

Airlines would be in touch to rearrange flights and the airport was working to reunite affected passengers with missing luggage, the statement said.

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