Travellers at Winnipeg's airport Saturday were left confused and dealing with flight delays after smoke in an IT server prompted the evacuation of around 1,000 people.

Flori Ens was flying home to family in Victoria. The former Winnipegger had purchased a coffee around around 4:30 p.m. when she said bells and sirens started going off.

"Everyone was walking around in a daze and didn't know what to do. It was just weird," Ens told CTV Winnipeg.

Ens said about 20 minutes later people were told to get out, some to the front, others out the back.

Sometime later Ens said there was announcement everyone had to go through security again.

"Oh my God, the line. It was so stupid. The line went around the entire arrival area. I've never seen anything like it. It was very confusing," said Ens who said she thinks she waited about an hour and a half to be processed.

Ens missed her connecting flight in Calgary, but made it home late Saturday night. Ens said she still has concerns about how the evacuation was communicated.

"In the event of a real disaster, everyone just stood there ... how safe would we have been because the communication was poor," Ens said.

The Winnipeg Airports Authority said August is the busiest month at the airport and the evacuation happened at the one of the busiest periods of the day.

"It's not something we want people to experience at our airport. It was something that needed to happen, but we'll make sure should something like this happen again we'll make sure we do a better job," said Communications and Public Affairs Director, Tyler MacAfee, Winnipeg Airports Authority.

MacAfee said two flights Saturday were significantly delayed and the rest were delayed by about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, about 120 airport employees have been on strike for a month.

The union representing them said it has people off the job who monitor temperature and ventilation.

"In an operation this size, there are alarms that go for a long time before smoke appears, who responded, was it corrected and why did we get to the point travellers had to be evacuated from the entire," said Marianne Hladun with Public Service Alliance of Canada

Airports authority on Sunday said if the workers on strike had been working, the electrical unit in the server room still would have failed, and they wouldn't have prevented the evacuation.

There is an essential service agreement in place so some of the workers on strike are still coming into work, and contractors have also been hired, airports authority said.