HOLIDAYMAKERS could be facing days of travel chaos after a tech glitch led to the grounding of flights across the UK yesterday.
Several major airports were forced to stop flights taking off and landing because of a system outage in the air traffic control (ATC) network, operated by Nats (National Air Traffic Services).
ReutersMore than 150 flights were cancelled yesterday after a technical glitch caused a system outage in the air traffic control network[/caption]
Passengers were left sleeping on the floors of airports as more than 150 flights were cancelled, with disruption expected to continue for multiple days as airlines work to restore their services to normal.
However, it is still not clear what caused the technical glitch in the ATC system – which took 20 minutes to resolve.
Airlines are also asking how one seemingly small error could cause such chaos in such a short period of time.
London Heathrow Airport – the busiest in Europe – saw the worst of the disruption yesterday, with 46 flights being cancelled.
This morning, ten flights to and from the airport were cancelled.
EasyJet’s chief operating officer David Morgan said: “It’s extremely disappointing to see an ATC failure once again causing disruption to our customers at this busy and important time of year for travel.
“While our priority today is supporting our customers, we will want to understand from Nats what steps they are taking to ensure issues don’t continue.”
Ryanair called for Nats’ chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign in the wake of the fault, claiming “no lessons have been learnt” since the August 2023 system outage – which cost airlines around £100 million.
The airline’s chief operating officer Neal McMahon said: “It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of Nats.
“It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the August 2023 Nats system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.”
More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports on August 28, 2023, when Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.
Airlines are likely still reeling from the memories of a substation fire near Heathrow Airport in March which shut the airport down for around 16 hours, cancelling more than 1,000 flights and disrupting plans for around 200,000 travellers.
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Doug SeeburgDisruption is expected to last for many days[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
