You couldn’t make it up: Manchester Airport runway pothole leaves passengers stranded

Just months after Andy Burnham warned that politics had a “very big problem” if it could not fix something as simple as a pothole, Manchester Airport has had its own rather unusual version of the problem.

A pothole in one of the airport’s main runways caused widespread flight disruption on Saturday, September 19, leaving passengers facing delays, diversions and some very unexpected changes of destination.

Manchester Airport runway problem causes lengthy delays

Runway 05L/23R, Manchester Airport’s main runway, was affected for around two hours after what Aviation News UK described as a runway defect.

Three flights heading for Manchester were diverted to Liverpool as a result. Those services were XQ592 from Antalya, LS884 from Pisa and LS802 from Rhodes, according to Aviation News UK. Another flight from Istanbul ended up at Stansted after being diverted because of the Manchester Airport closure. Travel service Inrix reported that flights arriving at and departing from Manchester were being delayed, with departing flights running around 50 minutes late on average.

Passengers were advised to check their flight status before travelling to the airport. Manchester Airport later reopened the runway, but knock-on delays continued into the evening.

Didn’t Andy Burnham have something to say about potholes?

Coincidentally, Prime Minister Andy Burnham had made potholes the subject of a much wider political point only a few months earlier. Speaking at the Great North Investment Summit in May, when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham argued that people were losing faith in politics because basic problems were not being fixed. “If politics can’t fix something as simple as a pothole, you’ve got a very big problem,” he said. Burnham then asked why people should have faith in politics if it could not deal with something as basic as fixing a pothole.

Manchester Airport has not officially described the problem as a pothole. An airport spokesperson said one of its runways had closed for a short period to allow “routine maintenance” to take place. That explanation is worth noting because Manchester Airport normally publishes planned runway maintenance closures in advance, and not carry them out in the middle of a busy Saturday.

Airport information states that its main Runway 1 is in use 24 hours a day, seven days a week and requires regular maintenance because of heavy use. Still, the coincidence is difficult to ignore.