🌎 An air traffic control outage sent UK airports into chaos on Wednesday, with warnings that disruption could continue for days.
A technical issue briefly grounded and diverted flights in Britain on Wednesday before engineers were able to restore the system, the air traffic control operator said.
The UK's National Air Traffic Service (NATS) has said its systems are fully operational, with the outage only lasting 20 minutes.
Airports said it would take time for the disruption to clear, with many planes and crews out of position.
UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that "continued disruption is expected" and warned passengers to "check with individual airports for advice".
On Thursday morning, 10 flights to and from Heathrow Airport were cancelled, according to the airport's website.
🌎 Airline bosses slam NATS for air traffic control outages
The NATS system has suffered several software-related failures since it opened in 2002.
In August 2023, a glitch meant flight plans had to be processed manually, rather than automatically. Hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled at the height of the summer holidays, and some 700,000 passengers were affected.
Budget airline Ryanair has called for NATS CEO Martin Rolfe to resign, blaming him for repeated air traffic control failures. The airline's chief operating officer, Neal McMahon, said it was "outrageous" that passengers were once again hit with delays and disruptions.
"Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace meaning thousands of passengers’ travel plans have been disrupted. It is clear that no lessons have been learned since the August 2023 Nats system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence," he said in a statement.
David Morgan, easyJet’s chief operating officer, said it was "extremely disappointing" that an ATC failure had "once again" caused delays and disruption at a busy time of year for travel.
"While our priority today is supporting our customers, we will want to understand from Nats what steps they are taking to ensure issues don’t continue."
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