Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) on Monday grounded aircraft due to a technical error. As a result, passengers were stranded on planes and at airports, and airlines warned of possible delays and cancellations.
Because of the technical issue, NATS has ordered traffic restrictions to be imposed as a safety measure while engineers work to identify and correct the fault. Despite the disruption, the UK has not closed its airspace.
Several airports, including London Luton and Birmingham airports, have attempted to assess the impact of the problem and estimate when normal operations can resume:
- The Irish air traffic control provider reported this The problem has caused significant delays to flights departing from, arriving at, or passing through UK airspace across Europe.
- Heathrow, the busiest airport in Western Europe, said it was working with air traffic control and other airport partners.
- Earlier in the day, Scottish airline Loganair warned on social media platforms of a network-wide failure of the UK’s air traffic control computer systems. International flight delays It may cause
- Dublin Airport has warned that air traffic control issues are causing delays and cancellations of some flights to and from Dublin. Passengers were advised to check the status of their flights with their airlines.
Many passengers reported on social media platforms that they were stuck on runways or in airport terminals in various locations such as Spain, Portugal and Greece. This is particularly distressing for commuters because it was a busy day as parts of Britain had a public holiday. According to a Reuters source, the pilot of the plane stuck on the runway in Budapest reported a delay of 8-12 hours.
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