A technical issue in the UK’s air traffic control system caused extensive disruption at major airports throughout the nation, resulting in the cancellation of over 100 flights and the delay of numerous more.
On Wednesday (local time), departures from key hubs such as Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and London City airports were briefly suspended due to an issue that the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) identified as being related to radar.
According to local media accounts, many of travelers were left stranded or redirected for several hours as a result of the cascading delays and cancellations, even though the fault was supposedly fixed in 20 minutes by switching to a backup system.
Later, NATS confirmed in a statement that air traffic capacity was back to normal and that systems were “fully operational” once more.
The organization apologized for the disruption and expressed regret for the inconvenience.
According to local media sources, Ryanair, a low-cost airline, was among the most severely affected, stating the incident caused more than four hours of operational disarray.
The air traffic authority’s readiness was criticized after the airline compared it to a similar system failure that occurred in August 2023 and caused significant disruptions.
Ryanair CEO Neal McMahon demanded that NATS CEO Martin Rolfe resign after harshly criticizing the handling of the most recent disruption.
“It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption,” McMahon stated.
The CEO of Ryanair went on to say, “It is evident that no lessons have been learned since the August 2023 NATS system outage.”
As recovery activities were anticipated to continue into the evening, airports and airlines advised travelers to get in touch with their individual carriers prior to arriving at the airport.
Read More
Trump claims that India and the US are still negotiating after threatening a 25% tariff