UK air traffic control says it has fixed a technical problem that sparked delays and cancellations
Britain’s air traffic control system says it has fixed a “technical issue” that caused heavy delays and cancellations
LONDON — Thousands of airline passengers faced delays on Monday after Britain's air traffic control system was hit by a breakdown that slowed takeoffs and landings across the U.K. on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
More than three hours after it reported the “technical issue,” flight control operator National Air Traffic Services said it had “identified and remedied” the problem and flights could begin to return to normal. But scores of flights were canceled, and Heathrow Airport said its schedules would be “significantly disrupted” for the rest of the day.
Lyudmila Hristova said she and her husband had planned to attend a niece’s wedding in Bulgaria, but their flight from Heathrow was canceled.
“Now we are looking for some information on how we can arrange another flight,” she said. “It is so difficult, they just got us out of the airport, it was very rude. There was no information, just some leaflets and that’s it.”
NATS said the outage had hit its ability to process flight plans automatically, meaning the plans had to be input manually, a much slower process. It did not disclose the cause of the problem.
The service said it had “applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety" but that U.K. airspace remained open.
After fixing the problem, NATS said it was “working closely with airlines and airports to manage the flights affected as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will be carefully monitoring the system’s performance as we return to normal operations.”
Monday was a holiday for many in the U.K. and a date when many families return from vacations before the start of the school
Read more on abcnews.go.com
