Airlines say flight schedules are ‘back to normal’ today following a temporary closure of London’s airspace on Wednesday afternoon.
In total, 84 departures and 71 arrivals were cancelled yesterday when UK air traffic control endured a technical fault.
The airspace had to be shut down for around 20 minutes, which forced some flights to divert to European airports, and others were delayed, in addition to the cancellations.
NATS, which controls UK airspace, said the fault occurred at the Swanwick ATC centre at around 4pm.
It affected flights across the UK, with London Heathrow suffering the worst disruption, with 29 departing flights and 17 arrivals cancelled.
Airlines said flights are operating normally today, but there are some cancellations due to some diverted aircraft not being able to return to base overnight.
In a statement, easyJet said: “While our flying schedule is operating normally today, the technical issue at the NATS air traffic control centre yesterday resulted in disruption for all airlines operating to and from UK.
“We are very disappointed to see an ATC failure impacting the travel plans of so many at this important time of the year. We did all possible to minimise the impact on our customers and while this was outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the ATC failure.”
Ryanair has called on NATS CEO Martin Rolfe to resign after yesterday’s incident, during which it was forced to divert ‘several’ flights and others were delayed for more than four hours, disrupting ‘thousands’ of passengers.
Ryanair 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.
“If NATS CEO Martin Rolfe fails to resign on the back of this latest NATS system outage that has disrupted thousands of passengers yet again, then UK Transport Minister Heidi Alexander must act without delay to remove Martin Rolfe and deliver urgent reform of NATS’s shambolic ATC service, so that airlines and passengers are no longer forced to endure these preventable delays caused by persistent NATS failures.”
