Warning of delay in airlines after air traffic mess

Airlines and airports have warned of a delay on Wednesday after Britain’s air traffic control mess.

The UK’s Air Traffic Control Service said that the technical problem, which was solved by 5:10 pm.

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

Earlier, thousands of aircraft in the UK were placed at airports including Heathro, Stanstad, Manchester and Edinburgh due to the issue.

Air traffic systems, run by Nats, were below for about 20 minutes.

After solving the issue, Nuts said: “The departure at all airports has resumed and we are working with affected airlines and airports to safely clean the backlog.”

Earlier, Nuts stated that it had limited the number of aircraft in the London region due to the “technical issues” at its Swanvik Air Traffic Control Center.

At that time, airports, including Gatwicks, said they were forced into all departure flights in response.

After solving the issue of air traffic control, the British Airways said it was still dealing with its effects.

“While it is completely out of our control, we want to apologize to our customers for any inconvenience and assure them that our teams are working hard to bring their journey back to the track as soon as possible,” the airline said.

A spokesman for Heathro said: “We are advising passengers to investigate with our airline before traveling. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Nuts apologized to everyone affected by the issue.

According to flight data firm Sierium, till 5:30 pm, 45 departs and 35 arrival at all UK airports were canceled on Wednesday.

Cirium does not credits the reasons for canceling, so some air traffic may not be caused by outage.

London Heathro had the most canceled number, and to take over 16 flights to other airports for Heathro, it was said.

Budget Airline Easyzet advised customers traveling on Wednesday evening to examine up-to-date information on their flights, and said that it would directly contact the affected customers.

This is the second time in two years when Nats have faced a big outage.

The previous one, which took place in 2023 on the summer bank holiday weekend, influenced more than 700,000 customers.

Ryanier’s Chief Operating Officer Neil McMahon said it was “abusive” that another air traffic control issue has disrupted the travel plans of thousands of passengers, and NATS Chief Executive Officer Martin Rolf has been called to resign.