Heathrow Airport fire: Chaos at UK airports including Manchester, Liverpool & Bristol as flights diverted

Images show fliers in airports across the country waiting in queues and on the floor as flights at the likes of Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh and Birmingham and are cancelled due to the Heathrow fire. Similar scenes have been reported at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

Maranda, 28, was at Edinburgh Airport this am for a flight to Heathrow then Dallas, Texas for her first trip abroad with younger sister Malarie, 22

She said: ''We got to the airport around 3:30 this morning, and about 40 minutes before our flight, we saw on the board that our flight to Heathrow was cancelled. Immediately, we started kind of freaking out, and then we got the notification that our flight from Heathrow to Dallas-Fort Worth was delayed and that raised alarm bells for us.

''We started checking the news and realised pretty quickly that there were some problems at Heathrow. We were informed by British Airways that we needed to go and get our bags that we had checked.

''We got our bags, and then they handed us a piece of paper that said we'd need to call British Airways. We sat on the phone for probably 45 minutes and we were luckily able to get another flight.

''We're now flying to Dublin, but we aren't able to get on that flight until noon. We were supposed to be back in Texas around 2:45 this afternoon, and now we're going to be back around midnight tonight. We're having to go from Edinburgh to Dublin, then from Dublin to Chicago and Chicago to Dallas.

She added: ''It was stressful in the moment for sure. This is actually our first time travelling abroad, so to then have your flights cancelled and to get very little information other than "here's their line, good luck," was kind of frustrating.

''But we were able to get a flight, and we're just happy to be able to go home today. Initially, they were saying it could be Friday, Saturday or even Sunday before we could get home.

''An hour ago it was pretty crazy - people were sitting anywhere they could find and there were pretty long lines to check in, especially for Aer Lingus, because that's where most people were redirected.

''British Airways gate agents basically said they couldn't do anything at that moment. Now, things are starting to calm down, there's just a lot of us waiting outside the gate desks hoping to be able to get on a flight today.

''There was a lot of panic at first. I know we were very lucky to get through to British Airways, but a lot of people have been coming up to me and my sister to ask us how we got a flight. The British Airways call centre has over an hour wait at the minute, and the gate agents' hands are tied because they've been told people have to go through the call centre. Everybody's in limbo right now.''

Five flights already in the air bound for Heathrow were diverted to Manchester Airport this morning - leaving passengers hundreds of miles from their destinations. Among them was an American man travelling to Ireland for a holiday with friends who is facing a cost of £500 to make it to the country.

Eric Eghert, 65, was planning to travel from Philadelphia, PA, to Shannon, Ireland via London Heathrow but has now found himself stuck in Manchester.

He was travelling with two school friends on British Airways flight 66 to make a connection to the country. However, his seven hour long British Airways flight was diverted to Manchester after a fire at Heathrow led to all flights being cancelled.

They arrived at Manchester at 6.00am – and were still trying to figure out how to get to their final destination, a cottage in Spanish Point, County Clare, nearly four hours later.

Now, the group of friends face a choice between paying £500 ($700) to get on a Ryanair flight today, or waiting until tomorrow to travel to the emerald isle. He said: “The people with yellow coats were there telling us what we should do to get through passport control and then they met us outside after we got our luggage.

“It seems that they took a bunch of people by bus to London, but you don’t know if Heathrow is going to be open or not, but I guess there’s other airports in London. They had to close it because there was a fire, and the electric was down so it was needed.”

Desperate to get to their final destination, the group of friends even considered taking a cab to Liverpool to try to get a ferry – though ferry service from the city to Dublin was cancelled last year. Eric’s was one of five flights to be diverted to Manchester Airport early this morning – with Manchester Airport managing to avoid most of the disruption.

Bosses at the airport say no more diversions are expected from Heathrow to Manchester today, though some connecting flights between the two airports have been cancelled. Manchester Airport has been contacted for comment.

The images below show the scenes at UK airports today as a result of the Heathrow closure.