Dozens of planes delayed or diverted as lights go out at Bristol Airport
The fault with the runway lights means aircraft couldn't take off or land for about two hours last night
Last updated 9th Jun 2024
A catastrophic failure with the lights meant dozens of flights due to take off or land at Bristol Airport tonight... couldn't.
Their runway lights suffered the failure - with the airport on social media giving the update at about 20:30 on Wednesday (January 25).
The incident caused 13 flights which were set to land at the airport major delays.
One passenger of a flight from Fuerteventura which was forced to divert to Birmingham reported their aircraft circling the airport for about half an hour before the pilot was forced to fly north.
Their flight with Jet2 finally touched down at about 20:30 in Birmingham before passengers and crew were ferried back down to Bristol on coaches.
The airport said engineers were on site - and for those with disruption to get in touch with their airline.
The flights which were impacted include:
- Jet2 from Fuerteventura – went to Birmingham
- easyJet from Toulouse - went to Cardiff
- easyJet from Sharm el-Sheikh – went to Cardiff
- Further 10 flights scheduled to land from operators easyJet, Ryanair, and KLM
Engineers worked for a number of hours last night to resolve the issue - and managed to find a temporary fix to the lights to resume service at about 22:00 last night.
In an update sent to us, the spokesperson said: “Our runway has now reopened, allowing flights to land and take-off.
"There may be knock-on disruption, so passengers should contact their airline for information about their flight.
"We're very sorry for the disruption this evening, which was caused by a fault with our runway lights. Our engineers will be working through the night to fix the fault fully.”