UK Air Traffic Control Problems To Likely Disrupt Flights for Days

29.08.2023 - 15:05 / skift.com / Mark Harper / Michael Oleary

The British government was working with airlines on Tuesday to help ensure passengers stranded in airports across Europe can get home after an air traffic control glitch caused widespread disruption to flights that is expected to last for days.

More than 1,500 flights were cancelled on Monday — a public holiday in parts of Britain, and one of the busiest travel days as the school holidays draw to close — when air traffic controllers were forced to switch to manual systems due to a technical problem.

That left thousands of passengers stuck at airports in Europe and further afield.

“We were stuck in the airport for about seven or eight hours yesterday. We were left high and dry,” said Maria Ball a holidaymaker from Liverpool, in the northwest of England.

She said she ended up at Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport from another one in the city, having finally found a flight to Edinburgh and was then facing a four-hour journey in a hire car to get home when she lands.

Mark Harper, the transport secretary, warned it would take days to resolve the issues, even though the fault was fixed after a few hours on Monday, as cancellations hit airline schedules meaning planes and crews were out of place.

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, would be operating a normal schedule by Wednesday, said boss Michael O’Leary, as he criticised how Britain’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS) had handled the situation.

“We still haven’t had an explanation from them, what exactly caused this failure yesterday and where were their back-up systems,” O’Leary said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he understood people were frustrated.

“The transport secretary is in constant dialogue with all the industry participants. He will be talking to airlines specifically later today and making sure that they support passengers to get home as quickly as possible,” Sunak said.

Harper said government officials did not believe the technical problem, the first on this scale for a decade, was the result of a cyber attack.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said 790 flights departing British airports were cancelled and 785 flights due to arrive were cancelled on Monday, meaning just over a quarter of all flights into or out of the country were affected.

British Airways said it was working hard “to get back on track” and had offered passengers flying short-haul routes to change their flight dates free of charge.

EasyJet said that the knock-on impact meant some flights were cancelled on Tuesday morning.

Heathrow Airport, Britain’s busiest hub, told passengers to contact their airline before travelling to the airport on Tuesday.