London: Airlines were attempting to recover their flight operations, after an air traffic control (ATC) fault caused major disruption to British aviation on Wednesday. Thousands of passengers were affected, with many likely to continue facing issues with their journeys.
According to Ghana News Agency, ATC provider Nats said its systems are 'fully operational' and that air traffic capacity is 'returning to normal' after the technical glitch affected flights across the UK following restrictions on the number of aircraft which could fly in England and Wales. Nats is working with airlines and airports to clear the backlog of flights, now that departures at all airports have resumed, the company added.
John Carr, a chiropodist from Stourbridge, was on his way to Norway with a group of friends to help set up his brother's wedding, for which he is best man, when he found out after checking in that his flight was cancelled. The 35-year-old told the PA news agency at Heathrow Airport: 'I'm pretty gutted. We've got loads of stuff in the suitcases to set up the venue, because we're obviously flying to Norway. We've got the wedding rehearsal to do. It's quite stressful.'
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. 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. Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace, meaning thousands of passengers' travel plans have been disrupted. 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. The issue on Wednesday left many aircraft and flight crew out of position. While it was ongoing, British Airways (BA) said the problem was 'affecting the vast majority of our flights', while Birmingham airport said 'departing flights from many UK airports have been suspended.' Several flights scheduled to arrive at UK airports were forced to conduct holding patterns or divert elsewhere.
In an update, BA said that the number of its inbound and outbound flights at Heathrow is restricted to a total of 32 per hour until 7.15pm before the flow rate returns to the usual level of 45 per hour. The 'technical issue' responsible for disruption was at Nats' control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, according to the company.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said continued disruption was expected following the restoration of Nats' systems and urged passengers to check with individual airports for advice. A DfT spokesperson said: 'We are working closely with Nats to understand the cause of the technical issue and the implications for the resilience systems in place.'