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Chaos erupted at all of Britain’s major airports this afternoon with flights out of London grounded because of a ‘technical issue’.
Passengers were stuck on the tarmac or rediverted to European airports after an air traffic control failure, which started earlier on Wednesday afternoon.
London Heathrow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Stansted, Manchester, Gatwick, and Luton are among those affected.
Air traffic control provider Nats has since ‘restored the system’ and is in the ‘process of resuming normal operations’, it confirmed, but further delays are inevitable.
Passengers have been advised to check with their airline before travelling.
A Heathrow spokesperson said: ‘Flights at Heathrow have resumed following a technical issue at the NATS Swanwick air traffic control centre. We are advising passengers to check with their airline before travelling. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.’
Technical issues closed off London‘s airspace, leaving many flights circling or displaced.
One person on X reported a Heathrow bound flight was flying around Ben Nevis while unable to land safely.
Meanwhile, passenger Jane Ainsworth told the Daily Mail her flight from Kos back to Birmingham has been forced to land in Brussels.
A frustrated passenger reported ‘going nowhere’ as they sat inside an airplane on the runway for more than 40 minutes
One person on X reported a Heathrow bound flight is currently circling Ben Nevis while unable to land safely
Another frustrated flyer reported ‘going nowhere’ as they sat inside an airplane on the runway for more than 40 minutes.
‘Going nowhere as no departures from @HeathrowAirport for the last 40 minutes. Apparently ‘the radar isn’t working’. @British_Airways crew being fab,’ they wrote.
In an updated statement NTAS, the UK’s biggest air traffic control firm, said: ‘Our engineers have now restored the system that was affected this afternoon. We are in the process of resuming normal operations in the London area.
‘We continue to work closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.’
Gatwick Airport said on Wednesday afternoon that technical issues caused a complete halt to departures while the situation was being resolved.
‘A technical issue impacting Nats is affecting all outbound flights across the UK,’ the airport said on X.
‘There are currently no departures from London Gatwick while the situation is being resolved.
‘We are working with Nats to resume flights as quickly as possible. Inbound flights are still landing at the airport.
‘Passengers should check the status of their flights with their airline.’
Furious passengers have reported being scared to miss events they were meant to be travelling to
Many flights have been diverted due to the widespread issue
More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports on August 28, 2023 when Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.
With the system down, flights could not take off or land at any airport, causing hellish delays that lasted for days and cost airlines £100 million in compensation.
A Civil Aviation Authority inquiry into the incident found that IT support engineers were allowed to work from home on one of the busiest days of the year.
The engineer assigned to fix the problem struggled to login remotely because the system had crashed, so it would not accept his password.
It took an hour and a half for them to get into their office, where they performed a ‘full system re-start’ – which did not resolve the problem.
While thousands of holidaymakers were stuck at airports or on the tarmac, advice was sought from an off-site senior engineer, who also did not understand why the system had failed so dramatically.
