Airlines warn of delays after air traffic glitch

Airlines and airports have warned of delays on Wednesday after a UK air traffic control glitch.

The technical problem, which caused major disruption, was resolved by 5:10pm, the UK’s air traffic control service said.

However, airports and airlines were working through a backlog of flights.

Earlier, thousands of planes across the UK were grounded at airports including Heathrow, Stanstead, Manchester and Edinburgh due to the issue.

The air traffic systems, which are run by NATS, were down for about 20 minutes.

After the issue was resolved, NATS said: “Departures at all airports have resumed and we are working with affected airlines and airports to clear the backlog safely.”

Earlier, NATS said it had limited the number of planes in the London area because of a “technical issue” at its Swanwick air traffic control centre.

At the time airports including Gatwick said they had been forced to ground all departing flights in response.

After the air traffic control issue had been resolved, British Airways said it was still dealing with its impact.

“While this is entirely outside of our control, we want to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience and assure them that our teams are working hard to get their journeys back on track as quickly as possible,” the airline said.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “We are advising passengers to check with their airline before travelling. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

NATS apologised to everyone affected by the issue.

According to flight data firm Cirium, as of 5:30pm, 45 departures and 35 arrivals had been cancelled across all UK airports on Wednesday.

Cirium does not attribute causes for cancellations, so some may not have been due to the air traffic outage.

London Heathrow had the highest number of cancellations, and more than 16 flights en route to Heathrow had to be diverted to other airports, it said.

Budget airline Easyjet advised customers travelling on Wednesday evening to check for up-to-date information on its flights, and it said it would contact affected customers directly.

It is the second time in two years that NATS has suffered a major outage.

The previous one, which happened on a summer bank holiday weekend in 2023, affected more than 700,000 customers.

Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon said it was “outrageous” that another air traffic control issue has disrupted the travel plans of thousands of passengers, and called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign.