Thousands of passengers stranded as power cut plunges Edinburgh Airport into darkness

Around 30 flights were forced to sit on the runway and the security gates were down. Photo/Twitter

Edinburgh Airport was plunged into darkness after an hour-long power cut this morning.

The power appeared to go out just before 9am today and grinded operations at Scotland's busiest airport to a halt.

Around 30 flights were forced to sit on the runway and the security gates were down.
Some planes coming in to the Scottish capital were diverted to Glasgow, while others were delayed in the air until the power was restored, according to Daily Mail.

Flights to destinations including New York, Gatwick, Berlin, Amsterdam, Larnaca, Barcelona, Manchester and Dublin were all delayed because of the outage.

The power appeared to go out just before 9am. Photo/Twitter

Many passengers posted pictures on social media of the terminal in complete darkness this morning. Engineers were brought in to try to fix the issue.

The official Edinburgh Airport Twitter page wrote: "We're currently experiencing a power outage.

"The safety and security of our passengers is priority, please work with us as we fix the issue."

By 10am the airport said the power was returning in the terminal, but it had not been fully restored.

A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport told MailOnline: "The power went off just before 9am and was restored around 9.50am - so it was just under an hour.

The airport is the sixth busiest in the UK, handling more than 12 million passengers a year. Photo/Twitter

"Everything went off from the security machines to the coffee machines.

"We have thanked the passengers for their patience and we are now dealing with the backlog of delays to the flights.

"As always, the safety of passengers and staff is our priority. We expect there to be further delays whilst we clear the backlog."

The airport is the sixth busiest in the UK, handling more than 12 million passengers a year.