Tens of thousands of passengers face travel chaos after flights halted at UK airports

Tens of thousands of passengers were forced to abandon their travel plans when a “technical issue” stopped flights across the UK taking off and landing for several hours.

More than 1,000 flights in and out of the country were cancelled, at airports from Jersey up to Aberdeen, including Heathrow and Gatwick, according to flight-monitoring website Flightradar24.

About four hours after the disruption began, the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) announced the “system issue” that caused the chaos had been resolved.

But after another three hours, air-traffic chiefs admitted the recovery had taken longer than they had hoped – and the backlog of flights was expected to continue causing disruption into Wednesday.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said she was seeking assurances that lessons would be learnt.

Many passengers agreed. Fahima Khalil, who was kept waiting in Dusseldorf for more than four hours, told The Independent: “It is so frustrating and unacceptable for passengers to be left waiting for hours with so little information or proper support.

“I sincerely hope lessons will be learnt and that action will be taken to prevent British travellers from being put through similar situation again.”

Ryanair called on the head of the National Air Traffic System to quit because the disruption followed a “catastrophic” system collapse in 2023.

The Irish airline said 65,000 of its passengers were hit by the glitch.

Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon said: “How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for repeated mismanagement and resigns?

“Over three years after Nats’ catastrophic 2023 system meltdown, it’s clear that nothing has changed, with UK passengers once again suffering avoidable delays of up to eight hours today due a critical system failing.”

Wizz Air called for urgent reform of Nats. “A critical national infrastructure provider should not repeatedly bring the aviation system to a standstill. Nats is simply not fit for purpose in its current form,” a spokesperson said.

Asked on Sky News whether he accepted responsibility for the incident, Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe said: “I always accept full responsibility”.

He added: “I am the CEO of a piece of critical infrastructure, so it is my job to take responsibility for that.

“What I absolutely take responsibility for is keeping people safe and delivering the best service we possibly can on a day like today.

“You will understand my focus is entirely about how we actually resolve this issue, get things back to normal, help our airlines, our airport customers and the travelling public.”

Last July, a “radar-related issue” caused a failure that grounded flights across the UK, forcing the cancellation of more than 160 flights.

In August 2023, more than 700,000 passengers experienced disruption as flights were grounded when Nats suffered a technical glitch.

As well as Heathrow and Gatwick, London City airport, Southend, Stansted, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, East Midlands, Birmingham, Belfast, Liverpool and Jersey airports were all hit by the chaos.

London City airport suffered the highest proportion of cancelled take-offs, according to aviation-analytics company Cirium.

Passengers kept waiting at airports or on planes that were not moving complained they were not given information.

People on board a plane due to fly to New York that was delayed for five hours said they were hungry, frustrated and “freezing cold” because the door was left open.

Some inbound flights were also left sitting on the tarmac for hours after landing.

Matt Ethan told The Independent his plane from Vancouver had been stationary for five hours, with elderly people and children on board.

“At what point does it become inhumane keeping passengers trapped on an aeroplane for that time after already travelling eight hours overnight?” he said.

The disruption prevented at least one couple from going on honeymoon.

Marco Marcucci and his wife, Beatrice, who were married in July, had been due to fly from Milan to San Francisco via Heathrow on Wednesday morning but the flight was cancelled.

Mr Marcucci said his wife was angry as they had been planning their trip since February.

A British Airways plane from Heathrow to Shanghai turned around over Romania and then diverted to Cardiff, FlightRadar24 said.

Air traffic chiefs said recovery had taken longer than they had hoped but the problem was resolved.

Nats said: “Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights.

“We are truly sorry for the ongoing flight disruption. We know this is hugely frustrating and apologise unreservedly.”

Asked about the calls for Mr Rolfe to quit, a spokeswoman said: “We apologise sincerely for the disruption to people’s journeys today and they should continue to check with their airline.”

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