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Nearly 1,100 flights to and from Britain were cancelled on Tuesday after a technical failure at the country's air traffic control service triggered widespread delays and left passengers stranded at airports across the UK and beyond.
By 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), 1,055 flights had been cancelled, according to aircraft tracking website FlightRadar24. The disruption marks the latest in a string of system failures to hit British aviation in recent years.
Britain's air traffic control service, NATS, said on X that the fault had taken longer than expected to fix. "Recovery from today's system issue has taken longer than we had hoped," the organization said, before later confirming the problem had been fixed. "Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights," NATS said, adding that the incident was "hugely frustrating" and apologizing "unreservedly."
The outage echoes a technical glitch in July of last year that also forced the cancellation of numerous UK flights and drew sharp criticism from airline executives. It follows an even larger failure in 2023, Britain's worst air systems breakdown in years, which affected more than 700,000 passengers after hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled.
Heathrow, Britain's largest and busiest airport, confirmed it was affected, as was Gatwick to the south of London. Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports also reported disruption, while Dublin Airport in Ireland said it had cancelled dozens of flights as a result of the UK outage.
British Airways said it was forced to cancel or divert more than 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of customers. Irish budget carrier Ryanair reported that more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted, with over 50 of its flights cancelled.
Passengers described chaotic scenes at affected airports. Healthcare worker Josie Donoghue, who had to disembark a flight to Ireland after being stuck on the Gatwick runway for three hours, called the scene "an absolute nightmare." She told the Press Association that "getting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz."
The disruption also reached the world of sport. Arsenal, scheduled to play Napoli in the Champions League on Wednesday in Naples, cancelled a pre-match press conference after the team's flight was delayed.
British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said on X that she was "seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job."
Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon went further, renewing calls for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to be removed from his post, accusing him of having again "failed UK travellers." "Enough is enough, it's time for the UK government to intervene... and put somebody in charge who can do the job," McMahon said.
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