UK flights resume after glitch – as airlines criticise ‘outrageous’ disruption

Flights have resumed after an air traffic control problem caused widespread disruption.

The National Air Traffic Service (NATS) apologised and said the glitch happened at 4.05pm at its Swanwick control centre but the system was restored 20 minutes later.

“This was a radar-related issue which was resolved by quickly switching to the back up system during which time we reduced traffic to ensure safety,” said a spokesperson.

“There is no evidence that this was cyber related.”

UK airports latest: BA warns of disruption to flights

Gatwick said earlier that the issue was “affecting all outbound flights across the UK”, while Birmingham Airport said “departing flights from many UK airports have been suspended”.

Just after 5pm, NATS said departures at all airports had restarted and it was working to clear the backlog.

Some 67 departures and 55 arrivals were cancelled across the country as of 7.30pm, according to analytics firm Cirum Aviation.

John Carr, from Stourbridge, was on his way from Heathrow to Norway to help arrange his brother’s wedding when he discovered his flight was cancelled after checking in.

“I’m pretty gutted,” he said.

“We’ve got loads of stuff in the suitcases to set up the venue, because we’re obviously flying to Norway. We’ve got the wedding rehearsal to do. It’s quite stressful.”

A Heathrow spokesperson advised passengers to check with their airline before travelling.

Flightradar24.com reported an average delay of 48 minutes at Heathrow for departing aircraft at 5.30pm, an hour after NATS restored its systems, and said 89% of flights were suffering delays.

Paul Charles, a travel expert and boss of a luxury travel group, told Sky News it was “a major outage”.

He said it would take time to get operations back to normal, and that long-haul flights would be prioritised.

“Long-haul traffic above short-haul traffic usually, because those long-haul aircraft are carrying more passengers,” he said.

Airlines criticise ‘outrageous’ disruption

British Airways was restricting inbound and outbound flights at Heathrow to 32 an hour, but said they would return to the usual rate of 45 from 7.15pm.

There was anger from some airlines over the outage.

Ryanair called for NATS’ chief executive, Martin Rolfe, to resign.

The airline claimed “no lessons have been learnt” since the August 2023 outage affecting NATS’ flight planning system, which grounded flights and disrupted trips for more than 700,000 passengers.

Chief operating officer Neal McMahon called Wednesday’s fault “outrageous”.

“Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace, meaning thousands of passengers’ travel plans have been disrupted,” he said.

Easyjet‘s chief operating officer, David Morgan, also struck a sombre tone.

“It’s extremely disappointing to see an ATC failure once again causing disruption to our customers at this busy and important time of year for travel,” he said.

Mr Morgan said he wanted to know what NATS is doing to “ensure issues don’t continue”.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for an urgent investigation and also referred to the “utterly unacceptable” disruption two years earlier.

“With thousands of families preparing to go on a well-earned break, this just isn’t good enough. The public deserve to have full confidence in such a vital piece of national infrastructure.”

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Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was aware of the issue, but said “continued disruption is expected and passengers should check with individual airports for advice”.

Flights departing or arriving at a UK airport, or aircraft operated by a UK airline arriving in the EU, are subject to rules concerning delays or cancellations.

Airlines may have to provide compensation, although there are exemptions for “extraordinary circumstances”, according to the CAA (UK Civil Aviation Authority).